


He Survives, As Always

by Rev (Ballyhoo)



Series: As Always, Maiza... [2]
Category: Baccano!
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Abuse, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 10:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23469754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballyhoo/pseuds/Rev
Summary: In time, he would be potential unfulfilled—wasted, squandered, reviled—in time, he would be Aile of the Rotten Eggs, the upstart, the stripling, the protégé and mentor, the alchemist, the contaiuolo, a single child by his own failings (always, his failings). By choice he would someday be Maiza again—and thereafter Maiza Avaro without a choice, he and his legacy bound to his name sempiternal. In time, he might learn to live with it.For now, Maiza's future is yet writ in stone. For now, he is four; seventeen; twenty-one. For now, he survives.An imagining of Maiza's life leading up to Summer 1705, as experienced through others' eyes.Thank-you gift fic for theBaccano!fanartists ClementineLemontime (Jellyfish_Dreams), TheGoldenHigh, and Raffings.
Series: As Always, Maiza... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705342
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	He Survives, As Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [thegoldenhigh](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thegoldenhigh).



> This Maiza-centric fic is a thank-you gift to fellow Maiza fans-in-arms ClementineLemontime (Jellyfish_Dreams), TheGoldenHigh, and Raffings for all the wonderful Maiza + _Baccano!_ fanart and original art they have shared with the fandom over the years. How can we ever truly repay you? Unfortunately AO3 won't let me gift fics to multiple non-existent users simultaneously (thegoldenhigh + raffings; it only allows one listed), so let the record stand: this is for all three of them.
> 
> This fic is also pre-canon as much as anything can truly be 'pre-canon' when it comes to _Baccano!_ , and contains violence almost _atypical_ of canon violence in the sense it is, relatively, tamer. It has also been a work-in-'progress' for technically two years; there are posts dating back to at least February 2018 on my Tumblr account containing short snippets one will recognize in the published version. By the time I published the final chapter of my last published fic— _The Honeypot Affair_ —on October 1, 2018 (also Maiza-centric), I was already planning to have this gift fic out by the end of the year. Then before the anniversary of THA's last chapter. Needless to say, I had not finished it by then; nevertheless, it is finished as of April 2020.
> 
> I'll be delving a little into the 'making of' this fic in the endnotes, though the historical notes therein may prove more interesting and I have to cut my own endnotes short due to lack of space. For now, thank you for reading; please enjoy. Please also know that the old, old fic this is technically succeeding— _He Disappoints, As Always_ —is not mandatory for comprehension whatsoever and furthermore does not represent my present-day prose.
> 
> Will strive to respond to comments via Tumblr, Discord, or other platforms!

###  **Twenty-one**

**T** he summer solstice had come and gone in Lotto Valentino, and Gretto’s older brother had gone with it—gone somewhere beyond the estate, beyond the aristocrats’ quarter, beyond Gretto’s knowledge, gone six days now and counting. Maiza, gone.

And Gretto, left behind to wait.

Gretto sat atop a stone wall on the outskirts of the aristocrats’ quarter for the seventh day in a row, biting nails already bitten to the quick and stewing worries that had yet to boil over despite the unusually hot June sun. It had been doing its best to slowly roast him to death, this past week, but he would rather it tan his hide than Father.

He would rather Father not tan anyone’s hide, of course. He _would rather_ a great many things right now. He would rather _not_ meet Giovanna Fiasella tomorrow per Mother's wishes. He would rather Mother stop agreeing that he is too young to be thinking about future wives when she has clearly been thinking about them in his stead. He would rather _not_ study arithmetic, he would rather not accompany Father next week to Signore Temini's estate, he would _rather_ Father _not_ insist he succeed where Maiza failed—that he, not Maiza, would be Father’s successor.

He would rather not be here. He would rather Maiza be here.

Sweat dripped off his chin onto already soggy sleeves. A few gnats buzzed listlessly by his ears, tinny against a backdrop din of crickets; their song reverberated across the bosky hills that rolled to the city below, rising from the trees, from the land, from hell to heaven, an increasingly frantic prayer to a god Lotto Valentinians had long ceased to worship.

Gretto, no less exempt, did not think to offer one of his own. He could hardly think at all, in this heat. Each new thought sizzled into vapor.

In their absence, he heard a new sound.

 _Wheels_.

A man was laboriously pulling a two-handled cart uphill, conquering the last of numerous bends in the long, long road wending through the hills between here and the city. The toil had taken its toll, transforming him into a hunched Sisyphus—except, as Sisyphus approached, Gretto acknowledged he was neither myth nor hunchback but just a short man: short; short of breath; and almost spent of surplus strength.

He saw a stranger. His stomach flipped with disappointment.

When the stranger rounded the end of the wall, Gretto leaned on his hands and waited for him to respectfully tip his hat or otherwise acknowledge his existence—but he plodded past without pause, face ruddy from heat and exertion. Idly, Gretto supposed that the sun could leave any noble looking as disheveled as any commoner. Or knife-fighting. Or any kind of fighting. Or...

"Heffoo..." Gretto’s tongue rasped dry against the roof of his mouth. He leaned further back to catch the man’s attention, and the world dizzily leaned with him: his right arm buckled; his elbow hit stone with a tingle-shock of pain; and he caught himself with his forearm before he could entirely topple whatever way was off.

The man rolled to a halt while Gretto rolled onto his other side, propped himself up into a semi-reclining position, and gave speaking another shot.

“Have you seen my brother in the city? Er, on the road? I’m, I mean, um…”

The slow way the man’s head tipped down while he squinted up at him was very distracting, in that Gretto feared the stranger thought him stupid. It was hard to tell. On the infrequent occasions Father asked if Gretto was stupid, usually late-night financial lessons where the frustration was mutual, Father would clench his teeth. Veins bulged. This stranger’s body language was different—but Gretto imagined in it the same question. _Is he…?_

Then his gaze fell on Gretto’s finely embroidered waistcoat and lingered on his new shoes. His expression cleared. After setting his cart down at an angle, he stretched his arms and waited for Gretto to collect his thoughts.

“He’d be wearing…” _Six days_ , Gretto reminded himself. Maiza sometimes returned home in the same clothes he’d left with, but other times…

 _Maiza?_ His head swam. He looked again. The peddler’s leather-weathered face was no more Maiza’s than it had first been. If anything, its haggardness reminded him of Mr. Garrott. And Maiza had never, ever, been _short_. Short!

“He’s very tall and has hair like mine except longer.” Gretto brushed back a brittle lock stuck to his cheek, trying to think of anything else to bring up besides clothing. “Maybe wearing fancy clothes…? Or not. Um. He might look like he’s been in a fight… Or not.” _Don’t babble_ , said Father. “Um.”

The man gave him a swift nod. _No_. Gretto’s heart sank. “Few out in this heat,” he said, in a regional accent Gretto wouldn’t be able to name. He at least could tell the man wasn’t Neapolitan. Not that he’d ever been to Naples. “I got to be, but I reckon you should find yourself shade.”

“This is the best view of the road,” Gretto replied, sitting up for the sake of a comfortable position. _And the best place to encounter Maiza_. “Ah—um, thank you for your concern…?”

He thought the man’s eyebrows raised—it was hard to tell. After a pause, the man reached into his cart and withdrew a wineskin, whose contents he then poured into a tall drinking cup.

“I’ve no shade t’sell, but I can ‘least share you a drink. Need it more than I do, I reckon.”

Well, Gretto wasn’t the one who’d been lugging a cart around in the sun. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a drink. Then again, someone from the house was bound to soon stop by with drink _and_ food. Then again, it would be impolite to… Then again, aristocracy…

The cup was pressed into his hands, its contents’ floral aroma overpowering that of the oleanders growing at the base of the stone wall. He gulped down water diluted with wine and forced himself to sip the rest of it, the cup’s rim cold against his cracked lips.

“Thank you,” he croaked, handing the cup back.

“‘Least I could do. Best be off.”

The man tucked the wineskin and cup back into his cart and continued on his way. Gretto watched him for a few seconds before drawing up his feet, intending to swivel around and resume his watch.

Instead he found himself lying down, scooting with his heels until he was stretched flat. Heat suffused his back almost intolerably; with a stone oven underneath him and fire above him, Gretto imagined himself one of Betta’s flatbreads waiting to be baked.

Gretto flung an arm over his eyes as a shield from the noonday sun. He didn’t have to imagine _waiting_ , but he imagined he would be waiting long all the same.

❖

“Gretto?”

Gretto bolted upright and nearly collapsed back again, his vision swimming with black spots and his stomach swimming with nausea. He sat weak and woozy for several moments until his eyes adjusted to the bright light and to Maiza standing at his left side.

_To—?_

“Maiza‽” he exclaimed—questioned, cried, repeatedly dumbly—“Maiza, you—you’re—”

“ _Aile._ I’m Aile. How many times must I...?”

 _Right_ , Gretto thought, rolling his eyes. _Aile_. Maiza had been on this _Aile_ kick for months, though he’d only recently started giving Gretto real grief over not respecting the name. Gretto sort of got where he was coming from, but it was hard to sympathize when he’d been saddled with _Gretto_. His brother had conveniently forgotten about that. At least _his_ name wasn’t an actual word. How many people here would know the English word _miser_?

 _That’s right_ , he thought, looking his brother up and down. _Maiza_ had left the manor a week ago in a dark gold waistcoat and matching breeches, and _Aile_ had come back in unfamiliar brown plain wear all drenched in the stale stench of sweat and smoke.

Maiza had left; Aile had returned.

“Gretto.”

 _Right_. “H-huh?” Gretto shaded his eyes as the peddler had done so that he could better look at Maiza, who—despite standing below the stone wall, on the hill’s incline—still had the advantage in height. Always the one looking down; Gretto always the one looking up.

“What are you _doing_ out in this heat, anyway?” Maiza—Aile—ugh, _Maiza_ gave him a critical once-over. “Are you _trying_ to give yourself heatstroke?”

“Waiting for you,” Gretto mumbled, suddenly wretchedly aware of a headache pulsing from his forehead to his temples. He wanted to lie down. He did. “Welcome home, Mai—brother mine.”

“You should go home. Find some shade.”

Gretto feebly shoved Maiza’s hip. “Mm. Move that way.” The sun now haloed Maiza’s head. “There. Shade.”

Maiza scoffed fondly, but his worried frown remained. “There’s some food and drink by your head. Is it yours?”

“Hm?” Gretto propped himself up on his elbows to peer over his shoulder. Cloth draped the outline of two carafes, cups, and a plate laden with indeterminate foodstuffs. He swung his legs over Maiza’s side of the wall to peek at the plate’s contents. Herbal focaccia bread, provolone, fresh raspberries, apricots, and a pomegranate. “Mm-hm. Betta usually sends a maid over.”

“To drink with you?” Maiza asked sarcastically, as Gretto uncovered the two cups and carafes. Then he did a double take. “ _Usually_? Don’t tell me you’ve…”

Gretto pulled the plate into his lap and bowed into Maiza’s shadow to better hide from the afternoon sun. And Maiza’s stare. “Not every _day_ ,” tried Maiza, his tone a mix between hopeful and exasperated and terrible.

Gretto shrugged.

“What? Why‽ Of all the… Tch, _kids_.”

“I wasn’t out too long at first,” Gretto said, in a small voice, “but I heard about a ship raid a couple days ago, and after…”

“You thought of the Rotten Eggs?”

 _Wouldn’t be the first time_. And yet Gretto still wasn’t sure if Maiza would be pleased or displeased at the idea of his little brother suspecting him responsible for a raid, after all these months. He gave a vague affirmative around a mouthful of cheese and bread, which he chased down with lemonade.

“Well, you thought correctly,” Maiza affirmed. It wasn’t fair that the first smile he had for Gretto after a week was a rogue’s smile. A dangerous smile. Like he was a tiger baring its fangs. Not that Gretto had ever seen a tiger. “Factum est.”

Gretto shoved the other cup at Maiza and shoved some raspberries into his mouth lest he snap and show Maiza how _happy_ he was to be right.

Then he choked on the raspberries and meekly allowed Maiza to refill his cup via the second carafe, meekly drank wine far more diluted than the peddler’s brew had been, and meekly considered making Maiza listen to him vent about his headache instead. Just because he looked exactly like Father didn’t mean he ever snapped like him.

“Look, those merchants were—no, wait,” Maiza said, pouring himself a generous helping of the wine. “Tell me what you heard first.”

“Just what the courier told us that morning. That some men boarded a trading ship sometime in the night and that some of the cargo was gone somehow.”

Maiza’s scoundrel-smile curled behind his cup. “Into the sea. I do not think it shall be able to fetch a price for anyone who might encounter it. Not even if Ludovico and Raffaele decide to go fishing.” The curl curdled into a disgusted sigh. “They’re the most shortsighted and selfish of an already rotten bunch, but even they wouldn’t be _that_ foolish.”

Gretto stuffed his face with apricots. The sun beat down upon his head, and his head pounded pain in answer. _Shortsighted_. That was a familiar word.

“Look, Gretto—look, don’t look at me like that. We trussed those traders up, but we didn’t hurt them. Only their purses and their pride. I made sure of it.” Maiza set the cup down, instinctively leaning forward as if that would make him more persuasive. Gretto pushed at his chest.

“Shade.”

Tsking, Maiza straightened to blot out the sun and continued, “Those…what they were exporting wasn’t anything nice. They aren’t good people. This is the first good thing I’ve—we’ve—done in… It was something. It—Gretto?”

Gretto scrubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand, sniffing back snot and any actual waterworks. He was too relieved and too tired and too mad to cry. “Mai—Ai—brother, you’re _back_ ,” he managed, and managed not to burst into delirious tears.

Maiza’s frown deepened. He pushed aside the tableware, sat on Gretto’s left, and lifted his hand only to let it hover above his thigh. “Where else would I be?”

 _On the boat. Far away. Without me_. “When I heard about the ship raid, I…”

_I was afraid you’d be hurt._

_That Father would be angry._

_Of your freedom._

_That you’d get on a ship and never get off it._

“…I was scared.”

_That you still might._

Maiza remained a statue; Gretto stared at the ground. “…Can I come with you, next time?”

“…You can’t be serious.”

Hurt, Gretto said nothing. He couldn’t even shrug the surprise off.

“Last we hunted you cried when you botched a rabbit kill. You’re not serious.”

“I guess not,” he mumbled. Too late; his brother was picking up momentum.

“Tommaso is fifteen or sixteen and he’s the youngest, so you’re too young anyway. Maybe when you’re older, but come on—”

“Never mind.”

“—you wouldn’t even enjoy yourself—”

“Stop. Forget it.”

“—and Father—”

“Brother, you’re _back_.” Gretto slid off the wall to wobble on his feet, barely aware of himself now. “Let’s go home.”

He barely registered Maiza emptying the carafes and tucking the plates under his arm, too busy trying to remember how walking worked. Only once Maiza was at his side did he remember, and together they started home. With every step he felt just a little better. For now, Maiza would always come back. In time things might change; for now, they had each other. For now, they weren’t alone.

###  **Nineteen**

**J** ean was people-watching by the mouth of a small alleyway when Maiza called to him.

The market square he faced perpetually teemed with all sorts of interesting specimens of the human race: red-faced fishmongers; merchants and urchins with copper-stained fingers alike; and, to his utter delight, a hapless foreign priest proselytizing in a cluttered enclosure on the other side of the square. The priest had clearly not heard of Lotto Valentino’s cold disinterest in all things religious, and Jean had scrambled for paper and pen as soon as he had spotted the man strut into the plaza. He would have rather liked to grant the priest all his attention for the sake of Inspiration, but in the end hopped off his own crate-perch in search of his friend.

He looked ‘round to find Maiza standing a little distance behind him. No, standing wasn’t the way to put it—not when Maiza had his right hand braced against the adjacent wall, supporting his weight. Jean offered him an eager smile, tucking his writing accouterments into a pocket. “Maiza! Fancy running into you here. What has you out and about?”

There was an attempt at an answering smile on Maiza’s part, a queasy upturn of the lips that molted into a faint, half-hearted line. “I’ve been cooped up home the past few days. Today I had the chance to step out for a little fresh air.”

Jean nodded with exaggerated insouciance. “Ah. I know the feeling well.” He laughed. “Occasionally when an idea seizes me, I’ll not leave my room for days until I’ve worked the itch out and am mad with want of the outside. Then I go off and mingle with the masses, bless them. Care to join me?”

“Gladly,” Maiza said, and it took a few hesitant, stiff steps on his part before he reached Jean’s side. The charcoal-gray bags under his eyes were visible for the first time under the noonday sun, and Jean couldn’t quite hide a wince upon seeing them. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

Shrugging, Jean gestured to the priest with a rude jerk of his thumb. “Not at all. I’ve been partaking in a bit of public calamity and general tribulation this morning. Some poor Church fellow has wandered into the city and has yet to realize the city doesn’t want him in it.” As he spoke, the priest sidestepped a leek some disgruntled passerby had chucked at his head. He amended, “Well, he’s starting to realize, at any rate.”

Maiza craned his neck to look, a few locks of his increasingly long hair falling off his shoulders with the movement. Slivers of yellow-green bruises peeked out where skin was visible, and for the first time, it crossed Jean’s mind that perhaps his friend had not been growing out his hair for the sake of rebellion alone.

[The Writer’s fingers itched at the promise of a story; the Friend’s heart beat with questions. As the Writer and Friend both, he pursed his lips and said nothing.]

“Rare sight, these days,” Maiza muttered, eyes fixated on the priest. An unkind huff of amusement hissed between his teeth. “Will he be run out by supper or by dinner, do you think?”

“If you’re trying to entice me into a bet, I’ll have you know that I’m not a betting man,” Jean warned him. “At least, I can’t afford to be a betting man. Writers are not a moneyed lot like you aristocrats.”

The jibe was meant in jest, an opening for Maiza to remind Jean that his writings had been picking up in popularity as of late while simultaneously expressing some mocking disbelief at the fact, as the two of them were wont to hurl at each other. Jean had it all planned out in his head: he would acknowledge the mocking, meet it with some of his own in response, and take pleasure in the reminder of his increasing fame anyway. Even if it _was_ born from his drab plays.

He waited for Maiza to deliver the anticipated praise, but his friend’s face remained taut with bitterness. Unwilling to let the silence sour, Jean took it upon himself to break it with a sigh and shake of his head. “Come on, I didn’t mean anything by it. Let’s go drown in beer at the tavern and forget I ever opened my mouth.”

“…Let’s.”

They pushed their way through the throng and were in turn pushed toward the priest and his small audience of malcontent vegetable-throwers. Following Maiza’s lead, Jean dodged a rotten cucumber, dived into a shower of peas and directly down the tavern’s downhill street; against all odds, he and Maiza tumbled past two burly sailors and into the tavern relatively refuse-free. Jean made swift work of securing both seat and drink for the two of them but lingered with his coin purse, hoping that Maiza would act as etiquette behooved him.

Much to his luck Maiza fished around in his pocket for a few coins, and as the hour wore on produced more whenever their tankards ran empty. _Miserly? Maiza?_ Not with the way Maiza was spending money like water, fiendishly delighted every time he sent more gold pieces clattering across the table’s rough surface. “Listen, Maiza,” Jean remarked, once he was well into his third tankard and had the beginnings of guilt churning in his stomach, “it’s generous of you to pay, but not even aristocrats’ pockets are bottomless…”

Maiza scoffed around the rim of his tankard, the sound scathing in a way that his and Jean’s normal mutual mockery of each other was not. “It’s my father’s,” he said, tossing his coin purse onto the table. “They can have it all. They’re welcome to it, in fact.” He threw his head back and laughed, dark and cynical and so very, very harsh. “Drink up, Jean. It’s on me.”

The chill creeping down Jean’s spine could not be blamed on the draft. One of the sailors sidled past their table for the second time, swinging scarred, sunburnt knuckles through Jean’s line of vision; his companion, meanwhile, had been loitering bellicose on the fringes of a nearby dice game ever since Maiza had ordered their first refills. No one, not even the most amateurish of people-watchers, could fail to notice the sailor’s distinctive striped sash in such a sea of plainclothes.

Jean set down his tankard with excessive care. “Actually,” he tried, “why don’t we go back to my place? I have a new work I want your opinion on. I’ll whip up something to eat too.”

His suggestion either went unheard or was completely ignored; Maiza did not move from his seat and only reclined further, drinking deeply from his tankard. Jean snatched up Maiza's coin purse and his free arm, hissing, “Maiza! I've had enough for now. I'm hungry. Let's go.”

Just like that, Maiza rose as if there had never been any fight in him in the first place. Jean pulled him out of the tavern and into the street, where the world registered only as sun-blazed red roofs, a merry blue sky, and the purse that was far too light and heavy all at once in his hands. He fumbled with the leather, fingers shaking with tipsiness and inexplicable nerves—“Here, come on”—wanting nothing more than to be rid of it—

—and a sunburnt fist swiped a shadow across his sleeve.

Jean cringed away, stumbling out of Sunburn’s reach and directly into Sash’s. Sash and a gust of wind lunged for the purse at the same time—Maiza, that was it, darting forward with a wild light in his eyes and a knife that sliced a new scar into Sunburn’s dominant arm; as Sunburn and Jean retreated together, Maiza whirled to slash at Sash’s torso. He met his mark, and met it again.

Sunburn attempted the same: Jean ducked a wide punch. A second. His opponent kept glancing over each time Maiza’s blade caught the light, whereas Jean was haunted by the sash perpetually fluttering in his periphery. The stripes glimmered, baring the fangs of some venomous snake—Jean ducked again, barely avoiding a sucker-punch to his eye. _Idiot! You’re no better!_

It took a fourth punch for Jean to rouse himself, another to steel himself, and by the sixth he was swinging the coin purse over his head and driving it into Sunburn's temple with a startled cry. Stunned, Sunburn staggered on the cobblestones— _no_ , Jean realized, bravado shriveling, _tripping on sailor two._ In the split second he lost his balance, Maiza seized his hair and yanked him back until his spine arced over Sash’s prone body; until it curved parallel to the ground.

The knife, glinting, came to bite at Sunburn’s throat. His legs trembled with his own weight. Jean was close enough to watch his Adam’s apple bob against the blade; close enough to watch the blade break skin; close enough to watch the blood dribble off his neck and onto his friend’s prized sash; Jean was _too close_.

“That's enough!” he shouted. “That's enough, Maiza. That's—please. Please.”

Maiza released Sunburn’s hair and let him collapse over Sash, chest heaving for breath. Jean approached him in the same manner as he once had a rabid cat when he was a young, terrified boy of seven. He knew his friend to be bitter, to be full of tarry scorn and bleakness—but he had never known Maiza to lose himself, to lose his reason and reserve and level head.

“…Maiza.” Jean flinched even as he uttered his friend’s detested name, away from Maiza’s head snapping upward and his blazing eyes. Yet, when Jean dared to meet Maiza’s gaze, his friend’s expression went frighteningly blank. The sharp cut of his gaze did not blunt; it vanished. Now it was Maiza who looked away, and whose hands fell to tremble at his sides. His knife rolled off his fingers and onto the ground, spackled with blood.

Jean had most certainly never known Maiza to avert himself so shamefully.

[The Writer regarded the Aristocrat before him, the Aristocrat with sweat soaking through his shirt and foreign bloodstains blossoming across his sleeves, the Aristocrat who stood there with empty eyes and empty hands. What, wondered the Writer, was he to do?]

“…Let’s get out of here,” he murmured, bending to pick up the knife when Maiza did not. Meanwhile, Sunburn and Sash stirred to their feet; they fled for the marketplace at two distinctively unsteady gaits, each propelling the other forward like tangled marionettes.

Maiza raised his head to stare after them and kept his gaze fixed even when they disappeared around the corner. “Jean–”

Jean took his right hand and pressed the knife’s handle into his palm. Maiza had no choice but to acknowledge him, and Jean deliberately left unacknowledged how his own doubt was reflected in Maiza’s eyes. “Let’s get _out_ of here,” he said, and curled Maiza’s fingers over the ivory. “Come on.”

Maiza’s gaze dropped to his hand. “…All right,” he agreed, hardly audible, and a knot in Jean’s stomach loosened. When Maiza sheathed the knife a moment later, so did a second.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, and chucked the coin purse Maiza’s way. The surprise on Maiza’s face as he hurried to catch it would’ve normally earned him a guffaw at his expense, but Jean simply clapped him on his back and steered him down the street. “I’ve had enough of mingling with the masses for one day. We’ve had a falling out, the masses and I, and we shan’t be speaking for some time.”

He earned himself a startled laugh for the quip, short but honest, and the final knot in his stomach unfurled into warm relief.

###  **Seventeen**

**V** ittoria Moretti didn’t particularly want to attend House Avaro’s masquerade ball, and she suspected that the Avaro scion didn’t particularly want to either.

Oh, he had greeted the guests politely enough, wooden delivery aside. Why, he had even managed a smile for her when she was first presented to him (though his half mask made it difficult to tell whether he meant it), right before asking her to call him by his first name. And he was kind to her throughout the night, truly he was. He kept pace while they danced, afforded her his attention, and responded to her attempts at small talk—far more effort than that of others she had known, young nobles with lofty airs and frosty glares for those beneath their stations.

And yet—less effort than that of others she had also known, and she did not miss how his feet dragged between dances, how in giving her his attention he denied it to everything else, and how his hands never wandered down her body like others’ hands had done (on both sides of the coin).

Vittoria considered all of this, as the evening wore on, and found that she could not decide whether she was more relieved by his kindness or his malaise. Even now, standing idle as she was while others thronged around the refreshment tables, she remained unable to make up her mind.

She _was_ , however, quite sure which of the two she was about to exploit.

…Once she managed to find him. They had lost each other in the crowd when the break started, and perhaps he _could_ have held her hand a little tighter, and perhaps he _could_ have been a little more forceful, but there were worse things one could be blamed for. _Besides_ , she thought, standing tiptoe _, he isn’t difficult to spot_.

If anything, Maiza Avaro was hard to _miss_ , Signore tall-and-dashing that he was. Though others wore far more eye-catching colors, he cut a handsome figure in his wine-red justaucorps and matching red-and-silver mask—and so it did not take long for Vittoria to spy him lurking by the door in the near wall, craning his neck as if searching for her as well.

Better to save him the trouble, short creature that she was, and besides—he was exactly where she wanted him. Vittoria dove into the common aristocracy and wove between colorful coats and corsets like a tern in pursuit of its prey, slowing only when she arrived at a final garrison of molting old men with nothing better to do than obstruct everyone around them.

Maiza had yet to notice her. She struggled to catch the attention of any of the men through civility, Maiza’s included, and so she tried her elbow at force—knocking it into the closest man’s side just enough to startle him into self-awareness. He tottered back; she burst forward, seized Maiza’s hand, and—

“ _Come_!”

—dragged him to the doorway, breaking into a full run as soon as they were through to the corridor beyond.

Maiza lagged at her heels. She tightened her grip, hitching up her gown with her other hand, and kept her pace. They were already running out of corridor. Already closing in on a choice.

Already, Vittoria gasped for air. “Which way—to—your garden?” she giggled, high and breathless. “I don’t know where—I’m going!”

Eleven steps remaining. _Left or right_? Nine steps and Maiza had taken the lead, seven and he was doing the dragging, five three one and _left left left_ and they hurtled around the corner without a moment’s hesitation. Exhilaration thrilled through every inch of her body. She surrendered to the feeling and Maiza’s strong grip, equal parts content and helpless to do anything else but _move_.

Three turns here, two misses with servants there, and now they were beelining for an approaching gated archway at top pace. Its single guard yelped, flinging open the gate just in time for them to barrel through to the garden. Seven steps, five steps, three, two steps, and with one more each, they stumbled to a halt.

Vittoria released her gown and tugged her hand out of Maiza’s grasp, placing it over her chest as she struggled to catch her breath. How she wished she had brought her fan! Her lungs and ribs howled out protests that she could no longer ignore; ruefully, she conceded that she should probably avoid any further running while wearing a corset.

Maiza turned around, frowning, and his mask again made it difficult to tell whether his frown was questioning or condemning. It hopefully didn’t matter; he had been a good sport up until now, and she had better let him know that she was on his side.

Pushing her green half mask past her forehead, she let out a gusty sigh and let the summer breeze cool her down. “Much better. I just couldn’t take another second in there—could you?”

Maiza’s shoulders slumped. They’d been rigid all evening—Vittoria would know—and she felt more at ease. Still, she didn’t think he was fully relaxed; not when it was clearly taking him effort to work up to a question.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice strained. “You’ve been fine company, but…I’m not…”

 _Oh_. She’d been sure she was doing him a favor by abandoning the part—and she was still sure they shared the same feelings—but to think he’d assume _this_ of her intentions, after all that! Or—perhaps he was simply erring on the side of caution.

“Interested?” she asked, and he flinched. “Oh—that’s all right. Neither am I.”

For a long moment, there was silence. Then he pushed his mask upwards, the whole of his face pinched in surprise and just as handsome as suspected. “ _What_?”

“Not interested,” she replied, patiently. “Not for now, at least. Nor in the near future, in all likelihood.”

The bewildered hope that softened his eyes and loosened the tension in his jaw was—all too familiar, and Vittoria couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve been a—gentleman,” she added, not quite prepared to call him a _perfect_ one, “but I’m afraid courtship and everything attached have never been...” She waved a hand. “A priority.”

He sagged in place with such obvious relief that Vittoria had half a mind to be offended, but for now her sympathy took the high ground. “Thank goodness,” he sighed, and only then did he wince at his behavior. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and the strain in his voice this time was genuine ruefulness rather than tense trepidation. “I’ve been terrible company, haven’t I?”

“I’ve met worse,” Vittoria assured him, and he groaned into the palm of his hand with the misery of someone who has just been assured that they were, indeed, some measure of _bad_. “Oh bother—I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, but he only groaned again. “It was a compliment!”

Maiza scrubbed at his face with his palm’s heel, daring to look at her once more, and Vittoria couldn’t help herself: “Are you this repentant with all the other women, then?”

 _Now_ he froze, gaze unfocusing, and Vittoria lowered her own in understanding. How easy it was to picture the _others_ , the young ladies whom Maiza would have treated with the same paradoxical mixes of kindness and coldness, attention and disinterest as he had Vittoria all night; the others, whom Maiza would have only ever held at arm’s length and resented like he surely must have done Vittoria upon meeting her.

His gaze was still far away when Vittoria glanced up again, its usual sharpness blunted, and she supposed he was picturing the _others_ too. She suspected he was having the more difficult time of it, drawing upon memories where she had only used her imagination.

Well. That wasn’t _quite_ true.

Maiza’s throat tightened, the yoke of remorse pulling him into the present, and his hands furled as if around straps with which he might strangle himself. One resentment, the other bitterness; Vittoria knew them well.

“It’s all right,” she murmured, her voice so quiet it was a wonder he heard it. She had brayed solidarity at him the first time with all the triumphant temerity of a seagull, but the gentle solidarity with which she spoke now seemed—truer. More meaningful. “Neither am I.”

She might have been more adept—or, willing—than Maiza when it came to socializing with prospective amours (and really, socializing at parties in general), but she had always tried to be firm when push came to shove. To be congenial and courteous but not coquettish, and to confidently rebuff advances and reaffirm her disinterest when necessary. Like Maiza she held her potential suitors at arm’s length, and she had no doubt that she’d more than bruised a few egos. In more than one case unfairly, having taken out her frustrations at her situation on those who did not _really_ deserve it.

“I’m sure they’ve survived us somehow,” she said dryly, and his lips spasmed with abrupt, unexpected amusement. “...We’ve survived _them_ , after all.”

He hacked out a painful-sounding snicker, one that left him massaging his chest and desiccated mirth crinkling around his eyes. “So far.”

“And so hence,” Vittoria retorted. “I’m not interested in marriage, and I’m not interested in a convent. I’ve never been one for cages, and I intend to keep well away from them.”

Maiza cocked his head, as if the thought had only just occurred to him. “What _are_ you interested in?”

“ _Birds_ ,” she breathed, and he paused for a long moment.

“Birds‽”

“Birds.”

An owl hooted in the far distance, from somewhere beyond the garden’s stone walls, and Maiza turned at the noise. But the tangle of unkempt countryside was dark and without answers, so he did not linger long. When he looked back, it was with contrite curiosity. “...Why?”

Vittoria hooked her arm through his. Guiding him into a stroll, she took him around the garden and talked of the way a Kite glides in the air without flapping its wings to conserve its energy. She talked of Nightjars and their practice of laying their eggs on the ground rather than nests. She talked of Swifts and Goshawks and the notebooks she’d filled with all sorts of observations and sketches and would be happy to show Maiza should they meet again.

Maiza afforded her even kinder attention than that which he’d given her during the dance. He listened with more patience now, asked questions here and there, and would occasionally stop without prompting so that she could catch her breath.

It wasn’t until the third round around the garden that Vittoria began truly winding down, and it was she who slowed as they approached the sea-facing wall. “...da Vinci studied birds, you know,” she rambled, as Maiza slowed with her. “I’d love to get my hands on what he’s written. Have you heard of Olina? Giovanni Olina—he wrote a book on songbirds some time ago, and I don’t care how old it is, I want—”

She was forced to draw breath as they came to a halt by a violet patch and drew two more before she waved her free hand in defeat. “Well, I want a great many things,” she said, newly defiant once she saw Maiza’s bemused expression, “and a great many books. When I heard of Lotto Valentino’s libraries, I...”

Vittoria swallowed back her next words alongside the raw hope and bittersweet feelings she’d felt when she’d first _heard_. Still, she couldn’t help the guarded eagerness with which she asked, “...Are they as plentiful as the rumors say?”

Even as she asked the question, she was already turning away—already withdrawing her arm so that she could brace herself against the wall and look at Lotto Valentino below. Between the moonlight, the streetlamps, and the shadows each cast, she could just make out the shape of courtyards and buildings; her heart beat an even quicker tempo as she tried to guess which ones were the libraries. Marriage might be endurable in such a city, so long as she had the freedom to spend her days where she liked. Better here than Rome, where the Lincean Academy’s doors would always be closed to her.

“Plentiful, yes.” A breeze rustled the nearby foliage and almost scudded Maiza’s quiet answer along with it, but Vittoria had no trouble hearing what she wanted to hear. She glowed with longing.

“Oh— _oh_. You shouldn’t have told me that. Now I might just have to marry you after all,” she teased—though she wasn’t entirely joking—and nudged his right arm with bold bonhomie. “I’ve not taken a single step into the city, but it’s sounding more and more like something I could fall in love with...”

Her bonhomie faltered when she turned and found Maiza had pulled down his mask once more. “I wouldn’t,” he tried, clearing his throat when his voice cracked, “if I were you. It’s not worth loving.”

Vittoria had every intention to interrogate him on this, but at the sound of voices—near ones, and nearing every second—she drew her own mask downward, drew apart from Maiza, and drew her attention away from him and toward the manor itself.

An odd mix of relief and indignation filled her at the sight of Vincenzo and Gretto—she thought that was the boy’s name—scrambling her way, soon skidding to a halt in a flurry of fine brocades and dust.

“Found you, ‘Tory!” Vincenzo crowed, while Gretto puffed his chest and gave Maiza a crumby grin underneath his own half mask. Where Maiza’s mask gleamed red-and-silver Gretto’s burned red-and-gold, delicate gilded feathers furling up and away from the mask’s edges like ecstatic flames. His smile curled in the same way when she complimented the fetching design, and only once she had him beaming did she finally wag a finger at her brother.

“You’re not supposed to run around unsupervised, ‘Chenzo, are you? Father did say we don’t want to cause any trouble for House Avaro...”

Vincenzo wrinkled his nose. “Father said Mother said I should tell you we shouldn’t be out too late, ‘cause we’re going to pay the governor an early visit tomorrow, remember?”

“The governor?” Maiza cut in, and Vittoria could practically _hear_ his brow furrowing. “Ah… That’s right; you’ve only just arrived...”

Vittoria’s family _had_ only arrived in Lotto Valentino earlier that afternoon—it was good of Maiza to remember. “What’s he like?” she asked, bustling over to the wilds-facing wall to peer up the hill’s slope. The governor’s white manor stood ghostly near the hilltop, an egg cradled in an aphotic nest. “Is there anything we should know in advance? Father and Mother want to make a good impression.”

“I can’t tell you much,” Maiza said, a touch surly. “He’s been moved in for less than a year, hardly made any public appearances, and yet he already has enough of a _reputation_ to be judged a womanizer. I’d be careful, if I were you.”

“How valiant,” was Vittoria’s dry reply, and she relented when Maiza narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be ever _so_ careful, ye of little faith.”

Maiza snorted. “We’re all faithless, here.”

 _Don’t say that_ , Vittoria didn’t say, having the vague sense he _meant_ it and not having the nerve to react as if it weren’t entirely a joke. Not in front of Vincenzo and Gretto, at least, and she elected to respond to her brother hopping impatiently from foot to foot instead of her companion’s dry comment. “I’m _coming_ , ‘Chenzo, don’t be so impatient…”

Vincenzo grabbed her hand and dragged her down the path, shouting “Come on!” to Gretto in a bold attempt to give him hearing loss. Vittoria couldn’t tell if Gretto followed, too busy trying not to trip on her skirts, and nearly did so anyway when Maiza called out behind her:

“Vittoria—”

She caught herself and glanced back to find him straining forward his right hand —a hand that abruptly dropped and curled into a determined fist. “I’m not one for cages either.”

 _Good_ , she thought, as she stumbled after Vincenzo. He pulled her through the doorway to the corridor, and she clung to the dark fervor heard in Maiza’s voice and thought _good_ ; upon Vincenzo bumping into the man she had earlier elbowed, she cleared her throat and said sweetly, “ _Good_ evening, Signore, if you would excuse my brother…”

They returned to the hall and to their parents, Maiza and Gretto following some minutes later. An hour passed in small talk and ended in Maiza excusing himself to see a sleepy Gretto to bed; with Vincenzo asleep over Father’s shoulder, Vittoria joined her mother in exchanging goodbyes with some of the more important aristocrats whose acquaintances they had made. For reasons she couldn’t fathom her mother counted the Signore she’d elbowed among them, and so she had no choice but to endure his company when he expected hers. Retributive justice, perhaps.

“Lotto Valentino is an insular little place,” he droned on, patting her hand with a damp palm, “insular indeed, insular indeed. Not always welcoming to outsiders, outsiders stay _out_ and all that, ill winds and whatnot…”

“Goodness, _really_?” she asked, with sparrow-bright levity. “I was _just_ told by Donna Faustina that outsiders are akin to a spring breeze here.”

“Quite right, quite wrong—one day a spring breeze, the next an ill wind, it all depends on how the wind blows.” He harrumphed and coughed phlegm into a handkerchief. Specks of it clung to his straggly grey whiskers. “Fickle indeed, fickle indeed.”

She tried in vain to free her hand from his. Perhaps this, too, was a lesson in handholding without permission. “Pray, Signore, then what of myself?” One would think his sheer amount of clammy sweat would allow her to slip free, but alas. “Welcome or unwelcome—or is too early to tell?”

He squinted at her mask. “Hrm, hrm, pretty young ladies are welcome enough, can’t have enough…”

 _Enough is enough_ , Vittoria almost said, but the word tugged at her memory— _enough of a reputation_ —and she yanked her hand away with sudden alertness. “Your new governor—he’s an outsider too, isn’t he?”

His mouth puckered and his whole face puckered with it, every facial wrinkle pulling taut until he resembled a curmudgeonly dried apricot. “Indeed he is. _Indeed_ , young miss, indeed.”

Eager curiosity tilted her forward. “Well? And what about him, Signore?”

“A wind of change,” he croaked, handkerchief quivering in his hand, and self-preservation tilted her back.

“And, and? Fair or foul? There must be some consensus,” she mused, having no doubt the local aristocrats may have very well reached a consensus on his governance before he had even begun to govern. That Maiza had such a decisive opinion on a governor so allegedly reclusive intrigued her like any good mystery would. That the Signore’s face was somehow _further_ wrinkling with peevishness was probably answer enough as to his own opinion, but she wanted _details_ —

“And so the wind blows,” he muttered, head creaking into a shallow nod at some errant gust behind her. Vittoria clutched at her skirts as she turned to look, copying her mother in curtsying before she saw for whom she made obeisance: a pale man sporting a tricorne so gaudy that it rendered all that was otherwise tasteful about his attire ostentatious. Empty space already ringed him, though it was hard to say if the aristocrats were showing deference at a distance out of respect or disdain: some women tittered behind their fans, while others wore genteel smiles; indifference accompanied surprise and surprise stood alongside wariness. None curtsied or bowed as her parents had done. Vittoria’s hands slipped to her sides.

The man tipped his head back to survey his onlookers, overhead chandeliers illuminating the two stars adorning his cheeks and a guarded expression not unlike Maiza’s earlier that night—lips thinned, jaw jutted, _too_ still. When Maiza’s parents emerged from the crowd to greet him, he ignored Maiza’s father entirely for Lady Avaro, whom he greeted by taking off his tricorne and bowing his head.

“I have come unfashionably late in unsuitable fashion, my lady, and for this boorish offense I expect no forgiveness. I will leave by your leave, should you wish it.”

His owlish eyes flicked upward while his head remained down, the angle skewing the glance as an imploring one from Vittoria’s perspective. _If there’s anyone who wishes to leave_ , she thought, rather impulsively, _it’s him_.

Even if that _was_ the Count’s desire, it was a desire ungranted. “You are of course welcome here,” replied Lady Avaro, when her husband said nothing. “Please, you mustn’t think us so discourteous as hosts. We are humbled to have you as our guest.”

The Count swayed. He donned his tricorne once more with trembling fingers. “Madam, all women are courteous by virtue of their own grace. To have cast such an unseemly aspersion is—yes, is virtue of my sins. I beg your pardon. I beg—”

He cast his eyes further upward this time. Closed them against the glittering lights. Swayed again. For a long moment, his face remained ghastly with fatigue. “I talk too much.” The moment passed; with abrupt alacrity, he spun to survey the impassive crowd. “Yes, I don’t talk enough. I have been scarce as Lotto Valentino’s new governor, I know. I am not here to bore you with empty speeches; I have no desire to impress you. I am here because I _am here_ , for however long a time that may be. May we all remember that. Continue as you were.”

The aristocrats had resumed their conversations and their wine long before he bade them to, and his expression hardened like petrified wood—only for a smile to splinter it when Lady Avaro sought his attention.

“Full of wind, he is,” muttered the fossil beside her. _Attention-seeking, was it?_

 _Needy old windbag_. “He’s full of wind, oh _indeed_ ,” grumbled Vittoria, under her breath. Maiza had yet to breeze back in—she was starting to think he might not return—and so she determined to come to her own rescue.

“I think I must greet him all the same, Signore,” she said. “My parents are making their way to him now, in fact. They will want me with them.”

“If you must, if you must…”

“I must,” she said, and hustled away posthaste. By the time she joined her parents, they had already been introduced to the Count by way of Lady Avaro.

“—Ah, and not a moment too soon. My lord, I would introduce to you my daughter Vittoria,” said her father, hugging her shoulders with his free arm by way of acknowledgement. “She has been most taken with your city’s libraries, numerous as they are.”

“And yet to set foot inside even one,” her mother added, as she pointedly tapped Vittoria’s arm behind her white fan.

Thus reminded, Vittoria minded her manners and gave the Count a brief curtsy. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The Count took her hand reverentially and bowed as if to kiss it—though he stopped a hair’s breadth away from actual contact; he held the pose for one second, another, and then relinquished her hand to stand straight. “The pleasure is mine, Miss Vittoria. The honor is mine.”

 _It truly was_ , if the warmth crinkling his eyes was any indication. She hadn’t been sure, before, if the dark circles under them were actual manifestations of fatigue or—alongside his inked stars—a substitute of a mask for the masquerade. In considering them at this distance, she concluded…

“You are a Count.”

“But you are a woman, and so the honor is mine,” he insisted, _and she concluded_ … “Women are the world’s saving grace and so too are they mine. You have made my world all the brighter, tonight. I am sincerely grateful.”

He smiled a smile as sincere as it was wan, as worn and ashen as his clothes were fresh and colorful, and she concluded, _both_.

Father cleared his throat. “I was just telling the Count, Vittoria, that we intended to pay our respects on the morrow.”

“And you are welcome to do so still,” the Count said, finally affording her father the briefest of brief glances. “I will inform my staff upon my return. And Miss Vittoria is welcome to explore our cities’ libraries at her leisure. I would be delighted to introduce”—his breath caught; his smile sallowed at the edges—“I would be delighted to recommend one or two for your studies or your pleasure, whichever purpose it may be.”

“Both,” declared Vittoria, exhaling overlong in an ill-thought move; she wheezed, “Academic and personal.”

“Excellent. I shall send a letter on your behalf to a library I can and do personally vouch for. The headmaster would welcome you without it, but I shall write it all the same.” He stroked his chin. Veered forward so abruptly that it took Vittoria all her honed etiquette not to startle in response. “I shall write you letters of introduction, for you to do with as you like. If any library or establishment here should refuse you despite my letter—or because of it—then alert me at once. I would challenge the offender to a duel.”

“Why should your letter not suffice?” asked Mother. “You _are_ a Count, and their governor besides.”

“Mm, mm, yes, such were the titles transferred to me…”

Mother looked him up and down. “Such titles hold _power_ , Conte Boroñal.”

“Ah, is that so? Do they now?” The Count hummed to himself, rocked on the balls of his feet. “I hadn’t heard.”

Her parents laughed at a joke only _they_ heard, causing Vincenzo to stir and protest via a cranky kick to Father’s chest. Paling, Mother hastily excused the three of them before Vincenzo could commit an unpardonable faux pas.

Somewhat belatedly, Vittoria was left to realize she had been left alone with the Count. He stared down at her with faint bemusement and hesitance; she stared back, and retreated behind the mask of etiquette. “You must be very kind, to invite us to your home without a second thought.”

“I have no family to share it with,” he replied, averting his gaze, “so there is naturally room to spare.” He cleared his throat. “Tell me—was Signore Moretti fair in saying you have been ‘taken’ with our libraries?”

“Not fair enough,” she mused. “Would I had the time to peruse them all!”

Whenever the Count’s eyes widened, they seemed to pierce her in place. Now, though, they struck her as acutely earnest if not plaintive. “Would I could grant it. No, I _shall_ grant it. Should you wish it, you are welcome to lodge at my estate indefinitely for the sake of your studies. The best of care would be provided. Anything you wish, I would grant.”

Vittoria’s heart quickened. The prospect was tempting—enough that she had to dig her fingernails into her palms lest she accept on the spot. It wasn’t that she doubted the Count’s sincerity or his scruples; though they had only just met, she felt sure he had a surplus of both. In fact, he reminded her of Maiza, somehow—something about the hunted look he’d had earlier, or the wooden shroud he had cloaked himself in when addressing the crowd.

With her earlier conversation with Maiza ringing in her ears, and curiosity and caution carelessly compelling her, she tested the waters: “Conte Boroñal,” she said slowly, more delicately than either she or Maiza had said it, “I am not one for cages.”

The Count froze brittle, shadows of deeply guarded emotions etching his expression like cracks in ice recently or soon-to-be shattered. For a moment, Vittoria feared she had caused offence—but that didn’t seem right, nor did the shades of bitter pasts she spied seem fresh enough to be her fault. Those shades melted into the specter of a resigned, understanding smile. “…Neither am I.”

Tender horror crept over Vittoria at both the Count’s present circumstances and what he represented. She struggled to imagine the Count speaking with Maiza’s fervor or her own casual certainty. Imagining either herself of Maiza ruefully accepting the Count’s fate, however…

Somehow, the Count had found himself trapped here. Of course he wasn’t one for cages—who is? No caught bird expects to be caught. _And yet._ Dimly, Vittoria registered Lotto Valentino’s high society encircling them as stifled corsets, conversations, clerisies. Her throat closed. As she readied a smile and a reply, her instincts screamed _flee_ , _flee_ , _flee_. She appreciated the Count’s generosity. She still wanted to see the libraries. And yet she wanted to fly far, far away before Lotto Valentino could clip her wings like it had those of the Count.

Rather than pray Maiza do the same, Vittoria found herself praying his wings hadn’t been already clipped without his realizing.

###  **Fifteen**

**“I** don’t want to.”

“Oh, but _darling_ ,” said Lady Avaro, as she straightened Maiza’s waistcoat, “I know it sounds like a bore, but a family portrait would mean the world to your grandparents and I.”

Maiza’s answering huff threatened to pop one of the waistcoat’s buttons off. Perhaps it _was_ a tight fit on him, but there was no time now to return to his chamber for a substitute. “It wouldn’t to Father.”

Lady Avaro tutted and gave the waistcoat another sharp tug downward. “You mustn’t say such things—”

“Why not? It’s true. If it meant the world to him, you wouldn’t be asking me to help you convince him to pay for it.”

“You mustn’t interrupt others when they are talking, dear,” Lady Avaro scolded, straightening just in time to see Maiza’s scowl vanish. “Your father is a practical man, so we must simply prove to him that commissioning a family portrait would be _practical_. That’s all.”

Maiza’s expression twisted like he had tasted something sour, and hers softened. “I’ll do most of the talking. I’m only asking for your support in case I need it.”

“...I don’t want to,” he repeated, but there was less bite in his voice than before. “I don’t want to stand next to him for hours in those stupid, stuffy clothes—”

He cut himself off like he was expecting to be interrupted, and he flushed when he was not. He flushed further still when Lady Avaro fussed a hand through his hair, stopping only when it was smoothed to her liking. “You mustn’t be ungrateful, dear. Remember—we are fortunate to have the opportunity for a portrait where most are not. And I do think you’ll regret snubbing the opportunity when you’re older and a little wiser.”

After a long pause, Maiza sighed and scratched his neck. “I’ll see what I can do,” he grumbled. “Let’s just get it over with.”

“Oh, but _darling_!” Lady Avaro exclaimed, taking him by his left arm, “We haven’t spent time together as a family for so long—and of course I mustn’t begin with such a request...”

Maiza winced at her touch and remained tense as she led him toward the salon, and she tried not to be hurt by it. It was common for boys his age to be embarrassed by their mothers’ affection, as they abandoned boyhood for manhood—and it was true that, at barely fifteen years, he was surely no longer a child—but she wished Maiza and her husband weren’t both in such a hurry for Maiza to do the same. Did neither of them value the present as she did, or yearn for the past? Was there nothing in the Now worth clinging to?

Well—if they were so determined to hurry toward the future, then this was all the more reason for a portrait to be commissioned as soon as possible. _Someone_ had to make a case for the present, and if she could not stand up for herself, she could at least stand up for _that_.

❖

Upon entering the salon, Lady Avaro was swiftly greeted by a hug from Gretto and a curtsy from the maid she’d asked to bring him.

“Thank you, Portia,” she said, ruffling Gretto’s hair. “Gretto, darling, you mustn’t hug my legs so tightly. I could lose my balance.”

Gretto shuffled back and clasped his hands behind him, sheepish and therefore adorable: “I’m sorry, Mother.” Lady Avaro gave him an approving nod; once he saw he had been absolved of further humility, he continued to say his piece. “Father’s not here yet. Are we really going to be in a painting?”

“If your father agrees to one, dear. We’re going to discuss the idea today—Portia, would you fetch a tray of black tea?—which is why you and your brother mustn’t be quarrelsome.” She sat on the sofa behind her and smoothed her skirts. “Can I trust you to be on your best behavior?”

“Yes Mother,” Gretto sang, already looking over at his brother; Maiza, who’d been eyeing the opposite chair closest to the fireplace—Lord Avaro’s favorite—scowled and stalked past the sofa to slouch into a different chair.

“You mustn’t slump, Maiza.”

Begrudgingly, he straightened. The effect was transformative; she’d been all wistful over Maiza’s boyish days not two minutes ago, but the sight of him now—proper posture, haughty and resplendent in that rich purple waistcoat against the drawing room’s elegant backdrop—filled her with pride for the fine young man everyone said took after her. Yet the lordliness chiseling his expression into regal grace was all her husband’s—and surely he would be equally proud if he could see his son in this moment, nobility personified.

Then Maiza made a popping noise with his cheek in a show of boredom, ruining the effect. _If only_ , Lady Avaro lamented _, a painter had saw him then_.

At her side, Gretto perked up and scurried to the center of the sitting area. “Maiza, look what cousin Cosimo sent me!” He dropped to his knees by a set of wooden soldiers that had been delivered to the estate this morning, each uniquely whittled and sporting bright coats of paint. In the fireplace behind him, a few flames sputtered tall as if begging to be fed.

“Gretto means Cosimo’s brother,” Lady Avaro clarified, for Maiza’s edification. “Cosimo sent a lovely set of spinning tops instead.” Which Gretto liked even more than the soldiers, for that matter, but she supposed the thick carpet he knelt on was not quite suitable for spinning. She also supposed that the toy soldiers weren’t quite suited to Gretto either, though it wasn’t as if Gretto disliked them. Even so, even so—

“Want to play with me?” Gretto asked Maiza, holding up a soldier so Maiza could better see it. “Until Father comes?”

“No.”

Gretto drooped in place like a flower suddenly wilted, and Lady Avaro fixed Maiza with a Look of Motherly Disappointment so pointed that Maiza hurriedly corrected himself. “You know Father wouldn’t want to see me _playing_ ,” he said, which wasn’t a correction—but Gretto balked in apparent understanding, and Maiza continued, “Er, well…you could show me Cosimo’s tops later?”

With an eager nod, Gretto accepted the compromise and contented himself with playing soldiers alone. Maiza, evidently not content to make conversation or do anything at all, relapsed into silence.

Lord Avaro had yet to arrive when Portia finally returned with a tea tray, and Lady Avaro accepted her tea only because she feared it would grow cold before her husband would finally leave his study. She too feared that any attempts at small talk now would only irritate Maiza when she needed him to be on her side, so she settled for watching Gretto play while they waited.

Gretto’s idea of ‘playing soldiers’ included no actual soldiering, as far Lady Avaro could tell, save for the occasional simulated march. He arranged no mock-up battles; he held no one-on-one duels. Not a single soldier toppled over from a fatal wound. Gretto’s soldiers were too busy holding conversations to hold wars. They stood vigil against threats non-existent until he led them in a scouting voyage that ended with the discovery of the Eternal Flame, at which the soldiers gazed in awe until Lady Avaro reminded Gretto that men of wood and flesh are equally flammable and should stay well away from fireplaces if they know what is good for them.

 _Not suited at all_ , she thought, swallowing back a fond sigh alongside other private thoughts that she could never voice out loud. She couldn’t just _say_ that for all that Gretto was his father’s spitting image, he took after her in everything else. There was an innate gentleness underneath all his boyhood energy, which pleased her, and a timidity to his manner which worried her. These traits made Gretto a dutiful, respectful child, but they would not make for a good aristocrat. They would especially not do for a good Avaro, a lesson which Lady Avaro had learned on her own and heard from her husband in tandem.

Submissiveness made her a good wife to Lord Avaro, but it would not make Gretto a good Lord. Every time she witnessed Gretto bow his head in deference, quietly endure another round of his father’s castigation, or refrain from so much as speaking his mind only made her the more concerned he was inheriting her passivity for good. But what could she say or do? Advising Gretto to assert himself at his age might lead to trouble. Right now, he had his father’s favor; if she shared her concerns with her husband now, she feared he might begin treating Gretto as he was now treating Maiza.

And goodness—she couldn’t insist that, for all Maiza took after her in looks, his recent mannerisms and behavior were increasingly reminiscent of his father. She couldn’t to Maiza, who would surely remonstrate her if not fly into a temper, and she couldn’t to her husband, who would surely argue that Maiza was not taking after him _enough_.

They would both agree that they were not alike, and yet Lady Avaro was certain that Maiza’s newfound stubborn streak was not hers. She was confident his increasingly defiant attitude had not been passed down from mother to son. She was sure, beyond any doubt, that she had not taught him to stand up for himself like he had begun doing as of late.

The recent friction in their household surely couldn’t be entirely _her_ fault. It mustn’t be. In part, as the household was her domain, but not entirely. Even so, as the household _was_ her domain, the duty was hers to repair whatever had broken along the way.

Wasn’t it?

But she didn’t know _how_ to see Maiza and his father make amends. She had on occasion ordered Maiza to do as his father did, but in doing so, had she not _really_ been instructing him to do as _she_ did? To obey, to submit, to be _passive_ to his father’s will, and that had been all very well and good when he was still the child she missed, but now—now that he was desperately trying to remind the world he had a will of his own—she had to consider what was best for his future. His own future, one that would eventually see his parents dead and unable to guide him.

What could she do for his sake? Was there any way that _she_ could make amends? What could she _do_?

Lady Avaro had yet to settle on an answer by the time her husband joined them, sweeping past Portia’s still-warm second tea tray, Maiza, Lady Avaro, and Gretto for his favored chair by the fireplace. He sat, opened the ledger he’d brought on an adjacent table, and raised a disapproving eyebrow at Gretto on the floor.

“What is this, Gretto?”

Gretto rocked back on his heels and ducked his head, suddenly shy. “Soldiers, Father. From Cosimo. I mean, from—”

“Doesn’t he have work to do?” Lord Avaro huffed, and with a start Lady Avaro realized he was speaking to her. About Gretto then, not Cosimo—and as she was currently responsible for Gretto’s education, of course he expected her to agree that Gretto is never in want for work.

“Gretto is never in want of work,” she agreed, but the slump of Gretto’s shoulders reminded her that it was also her responsibility to maintain good relations with their relatives. She continued mildly, “We mustn’t let him fall behind on his work, of course, but I expect Ioanna will write to ask how he found the gifts. Wouldn’t it be rude of him not to play with them at least once, darling?”

Her husband harrumphed and turned his attention away from Gretto to his ledger, which Lady Avaro took as tolerance. Her chest heaved with a relieved sigh.

“It’s been so long since we had a family get-together,” she said, and so their family time began.

The Avaros’ latest idea of ‘family time’ included little in the way of family activity. Gretto busied himself with playing soldiers—very much seen and not heard—while Lord Avaro remained preoccupied with his ledger and Maiza remained preoccupied with doing nothing at all. He sat sullen and silent where Lady Avaro talked and _talked_ , as she said she would: she imparted the latest wives’ gossip; she commented on the weather; she reported on Gretto’s studies and how good a student he was for her.

Lord Avaro’s occasional nods or grunts of dissent were encouraging enough on their own, as they meant he was listening to some degree, but she couldn’t help but give Maiza an ‘I told you so’ look whenever his father became—however briefly—more active of an interlocutor. When Lady Avaro brought up Gretto’s studies, he paused in his ledger review to discuss the education with her and Gretto _both_ ; he even asked a question here and there during her recounting of sundry family gossip.

Eventually, it came time to Broach the Subject of a Portrait. Lady Avaro nodded once at Maiza to signal it was Time, and he grimaced back in a show of support.

Thus encouraged, she took a deep breath and her chances. “My lord, there is a matter I would like to discuss with you.”

Lord Avaro’s brow furrowed, though he did not look up from his ledger. At his feet, Gretto—his soldiers forgotten—followed the discussion with wide eyes. “A matter?”

“A request.” She folded her hands in her lap, holding her head high. “I am asking, my lord, if you would consider commissioning a portrait of the family.”

There—she’d said it. Still her husband did not look up, and so the moment was robbed of any import. “A portrait?” He frowned at the page before him. “Frivolous. Not worth the expense.”

Lady Avaro told herself not to falter. She had expected initial resistance. She expected continued resistance. This in itself was some form of consideration. “An expense we can afford,” she observed, “and one I believe worth affording.”

He finally set down his pen so that he could better fix her with attention half-perplexed and half-impatient. “Whatever for?”

 _An open invitation. Don’t falter. Make your case._ “Because I would like a portrait,” she heard herself say, and she paled at her own carelessness. That alone would not be reason enough to justify the cost, and to open with it was to cast the portrait in a whimsical light. Just another of her female fancies. Silly and foolish. Thank goodness she hadn’t said it was her parents’ wish too. “It would be nice,” she trilled, a little too high and a little too nervous, “it would be _prudent_ to have a memory of us, as we are...”

 _I’ll do most of the talking_ , she’d said, but so far she’d done nothing but flounder. She mustn’t lose her nerve; there was no reason to lose her nerve when entreating with her _husband_. She cleared her throat. “I see it as a long-term investment, of a sort.”

“You see the portrait as someday salable?”

“No!” Why would she ever want to sell a memory? “No,” she murmured, embarrassed by herself. “Who would ever want to buy it?” It was what her husband wanted to hear, so she hastened to add, “I meant a—an internal investment. For both ourselves and the boys, someday, so that we may remember us as we were...”

But she could already tell she wasn’t convincing him, that he would likely vouch for their memories as sufficient, that this line of reasoning wouldn’t _work—a_ nd yet she continued to press forward. She coaxed, entreated, and nearly pleaded, all too aware she was ultimately always appealing to sentimentality rather than practicality as planned. She couldn’t help it. Sentimentality was the sole impetus for her desire, after all, and if it could convince _her_ , her instinct was to assume sentimental reasons would be reason enough for anyone else.

Lady Avaro sent Maiza at least three beseeching glances as she continued to lose her battle, but he failed to rise to her defense each time. She was on her fourth beseeching glance, now, and Maiza was doing his best to appear bored and unaffected and not at all on the spot. He was mostly succeeding, though his unnatural stillness suggested he had not forgotten what she had asked of him.

That he was deliberately ignoring what she had asked of him hurt more.

She talked for a little while longer, with diminishing hope and diminishing ways with which she could rephrase her arguments, and eventually her husband raised his hand for silence.

“Enough. The boys and I have work to do, and we have wasted too much of the day already.”

So this was the end, after all. Though Portia had kept the fire fed throughout the conversation, Lady Avaro was cold with unhappiness. So this was all she could do on her own. She bowed her head as Lord Avaro snapped his ledger shut, clearly intending to return to his study without further ado.

“Legacy, Father,” drawled Maiza, and Lady Avaro raised her head to find him the very picture of haughty carelessness, resting his cheek on his hand and one leg over the other. The change in his countenance was obvious to her, but Lord Avaro hadn’t afforded Maiza any attention thus far—though he certainly was now. “A portrait would immortalize your legacy.”

This was not the roaring rescue Lady Avaro had hoped for, for at first listen this line of reasoning sounded as much an appeal to sentiment as hers had been. However, when she peeked over at her husband, she was surprised to see him looking at Gretto with a curious expression on his face. “My...legacy.”

“Proof of it,” Maiza said, dangerously close to sounding embittered. “You’d be commissioning proof of who you are, and what you leave behind.”

 _Pride_. There was pride in Lord Avaro’s expression, and in recognizing it Lady Avaro finally realized _pride_ was what Maiza was appealing to. Not practicality, but not quite sentiment either.

It was with uncommon thoughtfulness that Lord Avaro finally said, “Perhaps… When Gretto is older”—leaving Lady Avaro a mix of cautious gladness and chagrined helplessness. So that was Maiza’s aim; he had managed to make his father more receptive to a portrait, but in such a way as to put off the portrait for the immediate future. Lord Avaro had looked at Gretto like Gretto _was_ his legacy, and Lady Avaro could guess at what portrait Maiza had led him to envision: one in which Gretto was old enough to look as Lord Avaro did in his prime.

Once Lord Avaro left the room, Maiza sagged in his seat and loosened his cravat. Gretto tumbled back to sprawl on the carpet, arms and legs spread wide. “Uhm...did Father say yes or no?”

“Neither,” replied Lady Avaro, quietly, and Maiza winced with fault.

“He sounded open to the idea,” he tried. “Not now, but—someday.”

Lady Avaro hummed at that, absently wondering if she had the energy to stand. “How many years must I wait?” she asked out loud. “ _Some_ day, but not _to_ day or _yester_ day. Some time or another, potentially, provided he even remembers, possibly.” But not _now_ , which was when she’d wanted the portrait done in the first place. Maiza knew this, he _knew_ this, and she couldn’t bring herself to believe _someday_ was the best he could have achieved.

“I—we—can remind him,” Maiza muttered, half-hearted and not nearly halfway repentant.

“ _We_?” Lady Avaro repeated, sighing when he managed a smidgen of answering remorse. “I—oh, I won’t speak any more of it today. Come, back to work. You too, Gretto.”

As she ushered her boys out the door, leaving Portia to collect the soldiers, she asked herself whether she would speak of the portrait tomorrow, or overtomorrow, or a year or several years from now if ever again. She would, she thought, but any resolution she could muster died hollow and ashy in her throat.

❖

One week later, Lady Avaro found herself eavesdropping on a hushed evening conversation between Maiza and Gretto.

It was accidental eavesdropping on her part—well, to the extent that eavesdropping _could_ be accidental. She had simply been on her way to Gretto’s chamber to enforce bedtime when she had overheard the boys whispering around the corner of an upcoming corridor, and instinctively slowed her pace.

At the words, “ _...permission, of course not—this is between..._ ” she came to a stop entirely.

Maternal duty and natural concern compelled her to listen further.

“...I can trust you to keep a secret, can’t I, Gretto?”

“But where are you _going_ ,” Gretto pleaded, in a whine that pitched with tinges of panic. “Are you running away? Is it because Father shot—”

His voice was abruptly muted—by Maiza’s hand, perhaps—and underneath Maiza’s hissed, “You’re too _loud_ ,” Lady Avaro could make out muffled instances of “didn’t mean”—and—“arm”—and—“sorry,” and she ached with worry over what Gretto could possibly be implying. Had Maiza suffered another hurt without her knowing? When?

“I’m not running away,” Maiza grumbled, once Gretto had quieted, “forever. I’m just heading into town. Through the window. And I need to you cover for me.”

“What about our carriage? Mother—”

“If I wanted to take the carriage, I might as well leave through the front door,” retorted Maiza, audibly impatient. “And of course I can’t ask Mother. She wouldn’t let me.”

 _Of course_ she mustn’t allow her son to roam the city at night, on foot and unsupervised, which was why she would—any minute now—circle the corner and catch him in the act of collusion.

“But...”

“I’ll leave within the hour and be back before dawn. All you need to do, if anyone asks, is explain that I retired for an early night. You _can_ do that, can’t you?”

“But…!”

“Gretto, _please_.” Maiza’s voice had taken on a ragged edge. He inhaled sharply. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get _out_.”

There was a long pause. Then a sniffle. “Can I come too…?”

He most certainly could _not_ , and he most certainly _would_ not once Lady Avaro rounded the corner and gave her boys a piece of her mind—

“What? I just _said_ ”—Maiza broke off to heave a frustrated sigh—“No. You’re too young.”

Gretto mumbled something in response which Maiza almost immediately cut off. “I’m not leaving you behind!” he snapped. The next word was spoken in a mumble to match Gretto’s own: “forever.”

Gretto’s breath hitched, forewarning tears. _This mustn’t continue_ , Lady Avaro vowed, busy signaling a maid who had appeared at the corridor’s opposite end to turn back. _Not for much longer_.

“I wouldn’t ask this of just anyone,” Maiza whispered. “I can’t. I’m asking you because you’re the only one I can trust. Do you want to be trustworthy?”

“Yes...”

“Helpful?”

“Yes…!”

“Then why are you letting me down?”

“I’m not! I’m not”—once again, he was muffled—“I can help, I promise, I can be quiet...”

Enough time had passed that Gretto would be late for bed. This wouldn’t do, and still Lady Avaro did not step forward. It wasn’t the right moment. Soon. Not yet.

“Thank you, Gretto,” Maiza said, his voice soft with relief. “I promise to tell you what happens.”

“And to play tops with me?”

“Yes...”

“And soldiers?”

“Yes…!”

“Oh,” said Gretto, sounding pleased. “Well, goodbye.”

“...I’m not going _yet_.”

“Oh.”

“I need to plan for the right mome—wait.” Maiza fell silent. Lady Avaro instinctively pressed her hand to her mouth. “Isn’t Mother supposed to be tucking you in?”

That was her cue to round the corner, and so she backed away from it as quickly as she dared. Children mustn’t discover their mothers eavesdropping—it would not _do_ —and as Gretto _squealed_ , she wrung her hands in anticipation of being discovered after all.

When no young heads peeked into the corridor, she stopped in her tracks.

The _slam_ of a door jerking shut drew her forward once more, pulling her around the corner and depositing her in front of Gretto’s chamber. Was her attire rumpled? It mustn’t be rumpled. She took her time in smoothing out creases from her skirts, paused to procure a handkerchief with which she dabbed sweat from her brow, and swept her shoe over the scuff marks her sons had left behind.

Finally, Lady Avaro put her hand on the doorknob and counted to ten. On thirty, she told Gretto she was coming in and pushed the door open to find him sitting upright in bed, hands folded on top of his sheets in the well-behaved way children often were when they had just done something naughty.

“M-Mother!”

A gentle breeze reached her as she stepped into the room, and she did not have to look to know Gretto’s window was open. She looked regardless, and then looked down when her shoe thereupon struck a small object: one of Gretto’s wooden soldiers, scattered on the floor alongside several more of its ilk.

“Gretto, you mustn’t leave your toys on the floor,” she chided, already crouching down to pick them up. “You’re old enough to know better. Was Maiza playing with you earlier?”

“Uh-uh. But, but he will later—he promised.” Gretto exclaimed, only to freeze when she made eye contact with him. _How rattled he must be, to have his brother’s name invoked so soon_. How precarious a subject, for him to redirect it back to his own naughtiness so hastily: “Won’t a servant clean it up?”

Lady Avaro retrieved the last soldier, rose as swiftly as her dress would allow, and bit back a question about Maiza’s whereabouts all evening. Unwilling to crouch a second time for the chest, and all but unable to comfortably bend over, she settled for settling the soldiers on Gretto’s desk. “One would, of course, but it is dangerous to leave them lying about. I could have tripped on one just now, darling. So too could a servant.”

So too could have Maiza—so too _could_ Maiza, Lady Avaro realized, but she could not ask whether Gretto had realized the same.

“Oh...I’m sorry.” He certainly did look sorry when she came over to plump his pillows, sheepishly allowing her to tuck the sheets around his shoulders when he lay down. “I’ll be more careful, mother.”

“Is that so? Then you mustn’t forget to close your window,” she replied, moving to close it for him. “It’s dangerous to leave it—”

“Wait!”

Her treacherous hands, numb with guilt, stilled on the window’s frame at the sound of creaking wood and rustling sheets. “It—it’s too hot,” Gretto begged. “I _need_ it open.”

“Then use one sheet, darling,” Lady Avaro said, letting her forehead rest against the frame as she searched beyond it. Peered into shadows to find nothing but lurking fears. “I need you to be safe.”

“That’s why we have guards,” Gretto retorted. _Of all the times for him to talk back!_ “Father’s guards, um, aren’t...bad, are they?”

What little slyness Gretto’s delivery possessed slid upward into a hopeful lilt at the question’s tail end. Lady Avaro bit her lip. “You’ll get a chill, dear.”

“Good! It’s hot!”

“You’ll just have to make do,” she snapped, and the strangeness of her own hot passion left her momentarily stunned. Her hands withdrew from the window, tingling with fault. How could she make him understand? Didn’t he realize that in having already endangered one child, she mustn’t endanger the other?

“Better a summer’s heat than a fever’s heat”—had her heart ever pounded as it did now?—“and better no sun than a dead son.”

Gretto whimpered, frightfully pale, but she did not move to comfort him. Never mind that the two of them were both guilty of the same crime—she would not fail in _all_ her maternal duties tonight. “An open window is an open invitation, Gretto, and I cannot bear the thought of some villain inviting themselves in. Do you understand?”

He craned to look at the window behind her, kneeling tall on his mattress with a rigid bearing that made her fear yet another objection. Then his shoulders slumped; he sank onto his heels, face slack with the misery of comprehension. “Yes, Mother.”

The sight of him huddling in on himself, bearing the weight of burdens she and Maiza had placed, was one from which she had to withdraw. Upon facing the window once more, she asked, “Would you feel better if I left the bolt alone?”

There was a brief pause as Gretto considered the offer, though his answering “Yes!” was so swift and eager that she doubted he’d considered it with regard to his own safety after all. He did not question her the way he ought to, and as she forced her hands upward, she forced out another question of her own:

“You do understand that I am not trying to punish anyone, darling?”

“Mm-hm... You just don’t want me hurt. I know.”

“That’s right,” she agreed, and closed the window. Lotto Valentino filtered through the cloudy glass as blurred lights and amorphous shapes, an alien city far below and far away, and to the panes she murmured, “We mustn’t allow ourselves to be hurt.”

❖

Before Lady Avaro followed her husband to bed, she inched open one of the windows to one of the ground floor corridors and would have opened more had her husband possessed more patience. No sooner had she entered her bed than she yearned to leave it, and she lay awake waiting for her son to return home.

If she waited in the drawing room, she might be able to aid his return. Then again—if this was the danger she could put him in by _not_ interfering, then the consequences of interference could be altogether worse. It would be wrong to aid him any further as it was; she mustn’t allow him to think she endorsed his actions.

Maiza was meant to be a man now, so he ought to look after himself.

Maiza was quick and clever, and the townsfolk would not harm him.

Maiza was more quick and more clever than all the guards, for they were common and he was not.

Maiza was caught opening a window after midnight, and for this his father caned him.

Maiza was beaten like an adult for a child’s disobedience, and for this his mother cried.

Her tears fell silently and shamefully, vanishing into her handkerchief like rain into soil. The cane fell hard and quick, whistle- _crack_ whistle- _crack_ whistle- _crack_ ing across Maiza’s skin like lightning and thunder across a pallid sky.

And lo, the thunderstorm raged.

Over a fortnight passed before Maiza rejoined the family at the dining table, and he retook his seat with ginger care and no especial comment on the occasion. No comments were made at all as the evening meal progressed and, although it was not uncommon for their suppers to be quiet affairs, it was uncommon for silence itself to be so felt a presence. It slunk under her skin every time Maiza pushed his food around on his plate, cutlery scraping against ceramic and her nerves; it forced Gretto’s shoulders downward and coiled cold around her throat; she was suffocated; she was suffocated, and so were her sins.

But she would gladly suffer silence over shouting, and in truth she feared the possibility of the silence breaking more than she did the silence itself. The evening had proceeded so calmly, calm beyond her expectations; if they could finish this one meal without troubling still waters, then surely it would be a success.

Of course, the trouble with _calm_ —

“Mother…are the people—happy?”

—is that _calm_ often betokens another _storm_.

Lady Avaro choked on her sea bass and hurriedly washed it down with a swallow of wine. Then she had a second swallow, peeking at her husband over the rim of her glass to find him ramrod at the table’s far end. “I—I couldn’t say, dear. I wouldn’t know.” _Mustn’t_.

This was not a lie; how _could_ she know? How could she speak on behalf of all of Lotto Valentino, especially when she hardly ever ventured into the city proper? She could not feign ignorance as to _which_ people Maiza was referring, but she was somewhat ignorant of those people’s hearts; she was further ignorant as to what answer her husband would want her to say. She didn’t want to know. Perhaps Maiza would let the question be. Perhaps her husband would too, so long as she let the question _Why do you ask?_ remain unspoken.

But the silence was now too brittle and too thin for unspoken questions to remain unheard.

“It’s just…” Maiza continued, staring fixedly at his plate, “…I couldn’t tell.”

His brow furrowed as if in concentration, but Lady Avaro could hear the puzzlement in his voice all the same. Any questions she asked of him would only encourage the conversation, not end it, but she didn’t know how to end the conversation without consequences. Maiza was already treading dangerous waters by acknowledging he had gone into the city; she mustn’t do the same.

“Happiness—isn’t always obvious, dear, nor should it be. We mustn’t pry into others' affairs.” After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “And the affairs of the commonfolk are not yet your concern.” There; this was a statement, she thought, of which her husband would largely approve.

Maiza raised his head to look at her, his own bewilderment _obvious_ by virtue of his _own_ hesitation. “But I thought…I thought I…”

“You _thought_?” echoed Lord Avaro, and poor Gretto—sat between them, caught in the crossfire—flinched from the verbal shrapnel. Maiza made no indication that he’d taken a direct hit, already resettling into pensive preoccupation as his father loaded another round:

“You… _thought_.” The first volley had arced with incredulity; this time, it pitched low with repudiation. Though Gretto was not in its line of fire, he cowered nevertheless. He shrank further in his seat when his father stood and marched past, shadow overcasting the table until it finally shrouded Maiza like some inexorable commination—

— _or a cloud portending a tempest_ , Lady Avaro realized, too late, and she could only ask herself when, _when_ she had become so willfully blind to both horizon and sky. Her husband’s hands lifted, and she could only lament, _So soon_? Her husband’s hands came down, and she could only watch as they settled on Maiza’s shoulders with firm, fatherly care.

“You _thought_ ,” Lord Avaro said, “but what did you _see_?”

Warm relief swept through Lady Avaro and bade her to imbibe more wine, which she did and felt the warmer for it. Even the blind could not be blind to storm clouds which had not gathered and, for that matter, the deaf could not be deaf to asperity which had never been audible. Her husband had been stentorian, then stern, but not _scathing_ ; now, his manner and tone were nothing short of didactic. He meant to make this a lesson, and Lady Avaro, at least, felt she had already (re)learned a great deal. She mustn’t doubt her husband so; she typically _didn’t_ , knowing how hard he had worked to strengthen the family’s position of power. Everything he had done was for the sake of their sons’ future.

Young men mustn’t forget their own wills, but children mustn’t disobey their parents at every turn. These were both lessons Maiza must learn. Respect, that was where the rub lied; he and his father together mustn’t forget respect.

And she worried, for a moment, that Maiza wouldn’t afford his father respect now. He’d stiffened at his father’s touch and had not relaxed, not yet. She imagined him shrugging off his father’s hands and father’s advice, rejecting him without listening to him—and oh, how _ugly_ a spat that would be in a room so decorous.

Caught up in her imagination, Lady Avaro nearly missed the fact that Maiza _was_ listening. “I—saw…?” He’d listened, yes, but not understood—or did not know what his father wanted to hear. None of them—not Maiza, not herself, not Gretto—likely did.

“The people,” Lord Avaro prompted.

“The people, the, the—yes, the people, they were…busy,” Maiza tried, halting and tentative as if this was the first time he was putting what he saw into words. “Brisk. Always bustling everywhere, with purpose—but I couldn’t understand _what_ purpose—”

“The people _bustle_ ,” his father cut in, “because that is what the people _do_. It is their lot in life, to bustle. It is all they know. They know their place and act accordingly. You saw people whom you thought spirited and wondered _why_ —needlessly so, but nevertheless I ask you the same thing. You saw _people_ —but did you see people with whom you felt you belonged?”

Maiza swallowed. His answer came too readily: “No.” He tossed his head, slowly, slowly. “No.”

“You knew your place was not with _them_ ”—Maiza was still; he _knew_ it—“so don’t waste time in trying to _understand_ those whose purpose in living is not your own. They know their place; it is time you know _yours_.”

His hands lifted. His shadow trailed down the table and accompanied him out of the dining room, and it took Lady Avaro a full minute to realize her husband had withdrawn for the night.

 _Discover and know your own purpose. Understand it. Accept it._ The parting message rang in his wake, a clear message, a _good_ message, but already Maiza was resuming a meal he had never properly started, already withdrawing into the same deep rumination as he had before, gaze already too faraway for his mind to be on anything _here_.

Lady Avaro despaired; if his mind was not with them, then it was with the commonfolk and the questions his father told him not to ask. He remained thoughtful and still for the remainder of the meal, and the more deeply he sank into contemplation the more Lady Avaro feared this would not be the last time he ventured unsupervised into Lotto Valentino’s streets. She knew it would not be the last time, and so she despaired for her son, and so she yearned, and so she hoped for his sake that he would not falter in the days and years to come. _Let him thrive_ , she prayed. _Let him live_.

###  **Nine**

**A** fter a week of Italian sun and cuisine, Mestre Ambrosius Thrane had concluded that out of his entire family he was—as suspected—the most suitable for the Italian clime. After a month, he concluded that while he was the one most suitable for the Italian clime, the clime was nevertheless still not quite suited for him. Staying out in the sunlight for more than a few hours gave him sunburn, and the garlic whenever he encountered it heartburn, but what was a scholar to do? Starve? Less competition as a tutor, down here.

After a month and a half of employment under Lord Avaro, Mestre Ambrosius Thrane had concluded Maiza was one of the most sedulous young students he had ever taught.

 _Not in every respect, nor with respect to every subject_ , he mused, idly fanning himself with his and Maiza’s scratchwork, _but if Lady Avaro were to ask, he could truthfully reply—_

“Maestro, your papers—the candle—”

“Oh—!”

Ambrosius startled to his feet, knocking over their satchel of coins in his haste to extinguish the candlelight—no, the papers, the _papers_!—and hastily smothered the flames burning away their sums with his fingers.

For a long moment, he and Maiza simply stared at each other.

Then, he threw himself to the floor and scrabbled for the coins. _Five_. They called out to him, tugged at him, _twenty-two_ glinting little things; they winked teasingly, all _fifty-five, fifty-six_ cold to his feverish touch; one-by-one, he whisked them off the floor and into the satchel; “One _hundred_ ,” he sighed, easing himself off his knees. “They’re all accounted for.”

“Mm.”

Ambrosius returned the satchel to their shared desk and to Maiza’s scrutiny. Upon reclaiming his chair, he neatened his papers, plucked up his quill, and heaved another sigh.

“Whatever is on your mind, share it now.”

Maiza squinted at him before reaching over to take the coin bag. He hefted it in his hand, the coins clinking, _clinking_ as the bag _tipped to one side_ —

—but Ambrosius snatched the bag back, drew it closed, and tossed it onto the desk yet again. “Perhaps you would like to reconsider,” he said, as if his heart hadn’t skipped a beat. “There are only so many hours in a day.”

“And only one hundred coins in our bag,” replied Maiza. “Unless one fell out?”

Ambrosius’ hands twitched toward the bag in question. He swallowed back a wild impulse to follow through, and instead turned to confront his pupil head-on. “My behavior was unbecoming and unlike me, and for that I apologize. Yours, I must say…” _What?_ That it was _unlike_ Maiza, sedulous student he was? That he was Ambrosius’ most sedulous student did not mean he was _exclusively_ sedulous. Nor was a month and a half time enough to find the full measure of a child.

“…Perhaps you would like to explain.”

Maiza shrugged. “Why do you…” He gestured at the floorboards. “Why.”

Ambrosius shrugged back. “I couldn’t say.”

“I saw you,” Maiza said, eyes narrowing, “in the kitchen, when Betta spilled a sack. You…” Again, he gestured.

“I couldn’t say,” Ambrosius repeated helplessly. “Rather, I don’t know.” In the face of Maiza’s questioning skepticism, all he could do was answer with the questionable truth. “Ever since I can remember, I have had a—a—a compulsion to count. I can’t explain it. Although I suppose…” He cocked his head. “…Well. I suppose _it_ explains _me_.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve always had a head for numbers,” he quipped, briskly cheerful as he refaced the desk and took up his quill, “as do you, I should think.” Met with uncertain silence, all he could do was continue with a certain truth. “Oh, I’m sure of it. Look here—ah, that’s been burnt off—your approach is incredibly tidy, what little of it you’ve written down. At a glance not everyone would appreciate it, but fortunately for you I can read your thoughts between the lines…”

Maiza glanced at the papers, at him, and at the papers again. For a moment Ambrosius wondered what in heaven could be troubling him—hadn’t it been as obvious to Maiza as it was him how easily Maiza took to the subject?—but he supposed Maiza had never been as _enthusiastic_ about the ledgers and long sums as he was. Not in the month they’d known each other.

“If there’s anything to count, count your blessings your parents hired _me_ as your instructor,” he teased, smile shrinking as he tapped at Maiza’s unfinished assignment. “Though at this rate I’ll be having you count all the books in the library if you don’t get back to work…”

Maiza completed the assignment in record time, and his vigor carried the lesson on for an extra half hour of impromptu question-answer back-and-forths. The subsequent art lesson had to be cut short, but Maiza dutifully completed two sketches of an old painted pot with ten minutes to spare—ten minutes Ambrosius would not _let_ him spare, and so Maiza spent them adding perfunctory details to the floral embellishments. No sooner did Ambrosius open his mouth to call time than did Maiza abruptly put down his quill and slouch back in his seat.

“You certainly have a keen eye,” Ambrosius said, as he compared sketch to subject. “It’s rather impersonal, isn’t it?”

“They’re copies.”

“Yes, and diligent ones, to be sure. Both of them. Still… Had we more time, I might’ve asked you to draw a third sketch. One with your own flair.”

“We _are_ out of time, aren’t we, Maestro?”

“Mestre. You know, we _were_ out of time with the arithmetic lesson…” Maiza gave him a beseeching look, and he relented, “Perhaps another day, then.”

❖

The next morning found Lord Avaro out of the manor and Lady Avaro yet to rise, so Ambrosius and Maiza broke their fast with only a few attending maids for company. That they did so without the company of the Lord and Lady was not in itself unusual; the unusual practice in these parts was to have a morning meal at all, as far as Ambrosius understood it.

Nevertheless, Ambrosius was _not_ from ‘these parts’ and had thus persuaded Lady Avaro to persuade the servants to occasionally indulge him on this meal matter—for educational purposes, of course. _Etiquette_ education to be precise—after all, it surely would be easier and more convenient to teach Maiza dining etiquette away from prying eyes.

“It still makes no sense.”

Easier said than done, as they say.

“Two napkins are perfectly sensible,” Ambrosius countered. “One in your lap, to catch any food, and another nearby with which you wipe your mouth. It is hardly _senseless_ , at the very least.”

“It is when you can just use the one in your lap,” Maiza retorted, and by way of demonstration used his to wipe away the breadcrumbs around his upper lip. “See? It’s more eh—eff—”

“Efficient, is it? It takes less time to retrieve the other napkin than the one in your lap—and regardless, you should keep your hands above the table at all times.”

Maiza stretched his hands upward, gave them an exaggerated look-over, and replied, “ _Why_.”

“How do I know you haven’t a knife out of sight? Or poison in your pocket?”

“Wish I did,” Maiza mumbled.

Ambrosius kneaded his forehead. “For heaven’s sake—of all the subjects to be obstinate about, why _manners_?”

“‘Cause they’re stuffy. And fencing. And dancing. And—”

“Stuffy, are they? Daft, are they? Hand over your knife and fork, then.”

Suspicious, Maiza recoiled. “Why?”

“It’s good manners to use a knife and fork here, but you’re right—how silly of me, how pointless an exercise. Why, much of the continent thought the same for centuries. The English used to laugh at you Italians for using forks, you know, not so long ago…”

He received neither fork nor knife, but a scowl which did its best to stab him in the cutlery’s stead. “You’re not even from here,” Maiza complained. “How do you know what’s manners and what isn’t?”

“I’m a quick study,” he said, and drained his glass of wine. “On that note, I’ve decided a quick fencing study is just what we need to start off morning lessons. Thank you for the suggestion—let no one ever say you want for good ideas.”

❖

“I shan’t. Mother never said you’d give me _fencing_ lessons—”

Lady Avaro had not, in fact, hired Ambrosius Thrane to be Maiza’s fencing master.

“Stop, nothing’s wrong, stop touching my feet, you _don’t_ need to tell me how to _stand_.”

Mestre Ambrosius Thrane had been recommended the position of Maiza’s tutor on second-hand if not third-hand word of mouth; he had been told, in more than one letter, that an Italian aristocrat’s wife had recently given birth to a son and thus sought a well-versed tutor to instruct her eldest son in her stead while she attended to herself and her infant.

Particulars followed. The tutor must at minimum be fluent in philosophy, logic, literature, and history, he had heard, and at least one—ideally two—spoken languages beyond Italian that would be suitable for a young noble to learn. Any additional knowledge of rhetoric, classical languages, and some sciences would be appreciated; especially desired, however, was a tutor adept in matters of arithmetic and finance.

It wasn’t until after Ambrosius had met Lady Avaro in person did he learn she was suddenly in want of a fencing or dancing master as well, Maiza having driven away his last master of both in the time it had taken Ambrosius to travel across the continent.

“Hff—this isn’t _fair_ —”

After five minutes of fencing with Maiza for the first time, Ambrosius could only wonder if _anyone_ was suited to teach Maiza this particular art.

“I _did_ tell you your stance was wrong,” Ambrosius said smoothly, as Maiza scrambled to his feet yet again. “If you would simply let me adjust your feet…”

Maiza outthrust his rapier; with a _suit yourself_ shrug, Ambrosius responded in kind.

Five unbalancings later, Maiza folded his arms tight and allowed his tutor to move his feet into position.

“There,” said Ambrosius, turning Maiza’s left heel _just so_. “Was that so difficult?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you rose to the challenge! How remarkable.”

Maiza rose his foot in a bid to stomp on Ambrosius’ hand; between Maiza’s stance and Ambrosius’ hand, only one ended up broken.

Ambrosius managed to wring twenty more minutes of fencing out of Maiza after a brief break, with each minute strained by Maiza’s impatience. Not Ambrosius’ own patience, however. Not today.

“You’re quick. That’s good,” he said, on an occasion where Maiza charged him. “You’re keen. Fencing depends on speed, just like any fight. But there’s such a thing”—he stepped to the side, tapped his rapier against Maiza’s shoulder—“as being _too_ keen, you know.”

Maiza was impatient and restless with Ambrosius’ insistence on the adherence to subtleties in posture, stance, and grip as he was all the subtleties of dining etiquette; he was impatient in a way he wasn’t even with his least favored scholarly subjects, and Ambrosius would need to spend more time attempting to teach him etiquette, fencing, and dancing, and etiquette. Not today, however. Not while he still had patience to reserve.

They transitioned from fencing to literature, from literature to Greek and Latin, from languages to history and from history to lunch with Lady Avaro, brief as it was; the minute she finished her meal she was back upstairs to be with the infant once more. Once more were Maiza and Ambrosius left alone to their meal, for it seemed Lord Avaro would not return until nightfall.

If a morning meal was strange, here in the southlands, then a family not eating lunch or dinner together was surely all the odder. Ambrosius had been given a room within the manor, but he was certainly no Avaro—and the only Avaro at the table sat picking at his food.

Ambrosius washed down a bite of bloody mutton and cleared his throat. “Would you like to visit your brother after we’re done? I’m sure your mother would be delighted…”

Maiza froze, fork hovering over his cheese tart—and then he all but shoveled a third of the tart into his mouth, in a tactical ploy to delay answering. A minute later saw him executing a strategic choking maneuver, which proved effective until it wasn’t and Ambrosius had to hastily push Maiza’s glass closer to him for his own health.

“I—I—”

“Take your time—and for heaven’s sake, another sip,” Ambrosius said, signaling a maid to refill Maiza’s glass. “If you don’t want to visit, say so from the start.”

“I’m not—” Maiza stopped to cough, took a gulp from his glass, and pushed his plate away. Folded his arms, rested his head atop them. “…What about me?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re not sure about me,” mumbled Maiza, into the crook of his elbow. “De-ligh-ted.” He gave a glum shrug of his shoulders, which then shuddered as he suppressed yet another cough. “Me too.”

Ah. Ambrosius glanced at the attending maids for some sign he was trespassing on tender territory, Avaro that he wasn’t, but no sign was sent. It might’ve been a mercy, had he been, for Maiza was usually such a well-spoken child—but now that he was speaking merely _as a child_ , Ambrosius hesitated to reply as a tutor.

Still, reply he must. “Well, I’m surely sure these last many months mustn’t have been easy for you. A new sibling isn’t an everyday happenstance, after all.” In a gentler tone, he added, “I suppose you’re still getting used to the idea?”

“Mm…” Maiza’s head shifted so that his cheek rested on his arm. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

“That’s a bit—”

“Father and Mother already like him better anyway,” Maiza continued. “I bet Father does.”

“That’s a _bit_ —!”

“Do you think he was this proud when I was born?”

“ _This is all a_ bit _much_ ,” Ambrosius cut in, excessively stern so that he wouldn’t be cut off for a third time. “I can hardly comment on my employer’s family problems, nor is it my place to do so, but the only reason your brother _wouldn’t_ like you at this stage is if you stay a stranger. Between you and an infant, the question really ought to be whether”—ah, too late to cut himself off—“er, whether _you_ like _him_. O-Of course, you simply might not _know_ yet and that’s perfectly fine…”

He trailed off before he could regurgitate anything more about ‘getting used’ to the situation, as he was never one for bromides and thought Maiza might be the same way. Maiza could be sedulous just as he could be openly petulant with him about that which he disliked or disapproved of, but he was never this open about personal troubles—and since _this open_ was equivalent to being _barely ajar_ , Ambrosius’s instinct was that if he _pushed_ now he would only push a door shut rather than open wide.

“A _hem_.”

Maiza jolted in his seat, toppling a wine bottle as he gawped at the maid who had so boldly reminded them of her existence. Ambrosius caught the bottle before it could spill even as ungracious accusations threatened to spill forth— _eavesdropping, overstepping bounds_ —but he corked his thoughts as swiftly as he did the bottle and beckoned the maid to continue. It was usually not a maid’s place to interrupt the family’s meal, but he was not _family_ , Maiza was not _grown_ , and their meal was far from formal—at least, not since Lady Avaro had excused herself.

“My apologies, Young Master, but Lady Avaro and the”—she considered, and continued—“new Young Master may be expecting visitors later today. May I ask how much more time you require?”

Ambrosius was sure that clearing and washing dishes and cutlery meant for three people—now two—could hardly require much time in and of itself given the number of staff on hand, but he supposed there was more to the preparations than all that. When it came to the question of time and late hours, however…

“None—or rather, only a few minutes more,” he replied, in Maiza’s stead. “Time does not wait for us either, I’m afraid. Thank you.”

He bade Maiza to finish what he could of his food and did the same in the meantime, swiftly mopping up the last of the blood off his plate with bread and dabbing his mouth with his napkin before rising. A smile slowly spread over Maiza’s face, a secretly-openly vindicated smile, and it took Ambrosius too long to realize that he had used his lap napkin in his haste.

He paused. “Good! You’re learning after all.”

That wrung a small amount of satisfaction from Maiza’s sails, but amusement carried him aloft all the same as he followed Ambrosius out of the dining hall.

❖

Once outside, Ambrosius turned to Maiza and said plainly, “The question still stands.”

Maiza shifted his weight from foot to foot and stuck his hands in his pockets, squinting downward at the carpet muffling his movement. After a little while he looked up with an imploring gaze.

Ambrosius met it. “All right,” he said. “That’s perfectly all right.”

They traipsed upstairs and down a corridor before they arrived at the bedroom- _cum_ -nursery Lady Avaro had been occupying since the infant’s birth, the door of which was dutifully tended by a maid whose name escaped him. She enthusiastically ushered the two of them inside after hearing Ambrosius’ explanation—after knocking and asking the Lady’s permission—and so Ambrosius and Maiza were swept into a room of modest elegance.

Absent were any small bibelots and twinkling trinkets hazardous to an infant’s health, but the small tapestries adorning the walls, the dusky red of the pattern-free bedcurtains and bedcovers, and the warmth of decidedly non-opulent lamps lent the room more coziness and—dare he say—habitability than any glittering chandeliers and jeweled mirrors ever could. In a highbacked chair sat Lady Avaro, minding a large giltwood cot as if she were a dry nurse; Ambrosius had never asked why the Avaros did not seem to employ a wet nurse or a dry nurse despite their status nor had he dwelled on it overlong, but the scene before him resurrected such questions once more.

“Come in—do come in,” said Lady Avaro, and tutor and pupil advanced forward with equal hesitance. “You mustn’t be shy, Maiza darling. He’s awake.”

Maiza shuffled toward the infant’s bed. Little Gretto flopped his arms at the new faces looming over him as he attempted to sit up; Maiza stared down his brother in silence. Gretto stared up at him in turn with wide eyes, arms stilling until a small, strange smile flashed across Maiza’s face—and then Gretto happily burbled _mamama_ by way of response, letting out a hiccupy laugh when Maiza’s smile returned.

With Gretto’s attention entirely on Maiza—and vice versa—Ambrosius studied the infant for a moment before remarking over Maiza’s head, “He has your resemblance, I think.”

Lady Avaro’s expression slackened with either incredulity or bewilderment, and Ambrosius hastily looked downward. “My apologies—I have forgotten my place.”

“Not at all,” she replied, shaking her head. “Merely—Mestre Thrane, you are the first to voice such an opinion.”

Surprised, Ambrosius searched Gretto’s face for that of his father and this time saw the outline of it in his nose, his ears, his eyes. Yet he hadn’t had to search Gretto’s face to recognize the reflection of his mother’s gentle love within it, and no matter how much he _searched_ he could not see any trace of the austere contours and lines he associated with Lord Avaro’s expression.

“I shouldn’t want you to take me for a chronic contrarian,” he said, “or a man of poor judgment. He does have his lordship’s shape—I see that now—but nevertheless—nevertheless, my first thought truly was that he has your softness, my lady.”

Perhaps this was too forward language to take with the lady of the house, though Lady Avaro only laughed. “But Mestre Thrane, _all_ infants are soft creatures.”

That much was true in the same way Lord Avaro was _not_ and potentially had never been anything resembling a soft creature, and although Mestre Thrane conceded the point he could only shrug as—try as he might to see it—any paternal resemblance all but vanished every time little Gretto giggled. He cooed at Maiza now, waving a chubby hand up at Maiza’s smile until Maiza abruptly caught the hand in his own.

“I’ll protect you,” he said, his expression now one of somber intent. “I’ll protect you. That’s a promise.”

 _Not one a child should have to make_ , thought Ambrosius, though it was the seriousness with which Maiza had made it that primarily filled him with vague sadness. Lady Avaro began combing her fingers through Maiza’s hair while he tickled Gretto’s chest, and Ambrosius found himself looking for his own melancholy in her expression. He did not find it, and did not know whether to envy her or pity her or deprecate her. In the end, he did nothing—for in the words of his many past employers, it would not have been his place.

❖

A month later, shortly into the start of one otherwise quiet morning, Lord Avaro interrupted Ambrosius’ grammar lecture by striding into the library and tugging at Maiza’s shoulder.

“Come—we shall have a hawking lesson. A hunt, if the weather holds. Leave your things.” To Ambrosius, he clarified as an afterthought, “They say we are due for a long chill, Mestre. You will have ample time to tutor him then.”

Thus was Maiza shepherded out of the library and the rest of morning lessons, and likely afternoon lessons too should ‘the weather hold’. Ambrosius tidied Maiza’s papers, spent the next half hour browsing books in the library, and passed the rest of the morning reading for pleasure until a maid brought him a plate of stuffed mushrooms and tender roast duck. He ate with one hand and with the other scribbled down book titles on Maiza’s behalf, some more relevant to Maiza’s education than others—and most perhaps more advanced than was appropriate, but one worked with what one had.

Afterward he wandered downstairs to an alcove beyond the sun’s present reach, and its coolness settled him into an afternoon nap on the alcove’s bench.

He couldn’t be sure, later, what it was that unsettled him out of sleep. The itch of late sunlight across his skin. The murmur of anxious voices across the corridor. The musty odor of the old book across his chest. He knew that he had stirred and sat up, putting the book aside. He knew that he had seen—saw—

Two maids stood at the windows opposite—or, one stood while the other leant out so far Ambrosius feared she might fall. “No—they’re coming closer, I can see—Oh! Oh!” She withdrew her head so swiftly she bumped it against the window frame, clutching her friend’s hand for balance. “They’ve caught a boar, but the Young Master—oh, look!”

The shorter maid looked. “I don’t s— _again_?”

“You think—?”

“What else could I think? _Tch_. Does his lordship ever _think_ about who has to mend all the clothes—”

“My pardon,” said Ambrosius, ignoring how the woman paled, “but what has happened?”

She bumbled through hasty apologies while the taller woman fumbled with her skirts as if to curtsy, though she almost immediately gave it up and gave him an exasperated sigh. “Another incident, likely. I don’t know when those hounds got to be so nasty, but—”

But Ambrosius was up and away, for his mind was already at the stables and his body rushed to follow. He joined the company of the steward and another cook on the way only to overtake them both once the large, heavy door to the stables was in sight. It took him one hand to wrench it open; it took him both to shield his eyes from the late sun, and he lurched forward in the same moment Maiza lurched at the opposite end of the stables, pulling at his horse’s reins to keep from falling. Three hunting hounds of different breeds and degrees of agitation yipped and snarled nearby, jerking at their handlers’ leashes while two hawkers kept their distance. Behind and above them all was Lord Avaro, yet to dismount as his son had.

Here Ambrosius’ eyesight failed him, weak to the daylight; he strained, and still could not see whatever details the maid had recognized from a farther distance. He could make out Maiza handing the reins to Dolfin before stumbling this way, closer and closer until Ambrosius could make out the blood at his right shin—

Ambrosius licked his lips. Turned away. Fled into the corridor while the steward and cook rushed forward. Didn’t look back.

❖

After the whole ordeal was over—an hour or so later, when Maiza was suitably bandaged and Ambrosius was suitably cognizant—Ambrosius approached Maiza in the corridor with the apologetic decorum expected of his station.

“I’m—sorry,” he began, faltering, “for faltering.” He _had_ turned away, had abandoned Maiza when faced with the shimmering red of his mortality—and that was hardly graceful. “I… Is it...? What happened?”

Maiza shrugged, glowering at the carpet like it would bite him too. “Those dogs. Cacciatore, Cercatore, Uccisore. They don’t like me.”

“I…” Ambrosius ran a hand down his face. “Does this happen often?”

“No. Don’t worry.”

“Of course I worry,” snapped Ambrosius. “Of course I…” But he _had_ turned away, away from the blood that had tormented him in his dreams. He had turned away from his pupil, however temporary or permanent a pupil he might be. “I’m sorry.”

“It happens. It’s all right.”

“Hardly.”

Again his pupil shrugged. “You weren’t there. Don’t be sorry.”

“I still f—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Maiza repeated. “Please.” He scuffed his shoe over the carpet, and then gave the edge a mighty kick or four in a bid to create a wrinkle. “No point.”

Ambrosius fiddled with his cuffs. He ought to protest, ought to defend Maiza where Maiza could not; he ought to take action.

“Well, well! So you remember your manners after all,” he said, through a smile as light as he hoped his voice sounded. “I devised a list of books I thought you ought…or should like to read,” he began, as he procured and offered the list in question. “I’ve marked which ones are most manageable for…ah, someone of your age. Level. Perhaps one of them may prove a diversion.”

Maiza cocked his head and eyebrow— _rather overdoing it, aren’t you?_ —with much doubt, though whether he doubted the book’s diverting qualities or whether _he_ was the one in need of diverting was impossible to say. Still, he took the paper and muttered _Thanks_ under his breath, giving the list a read-through before folding it and tucking it into his pocket.

Ambrosius’ smile remained unchanged. The feeling behind it did. “I suppose you may be happier to know you will be excused from dancing and fencing lessons until further notice—”

“ _Yes_.”

“—but of course, they shall have to be replaced with other edifying—that is to say, educational—activities,” Ambrosius continued. “I trust you will comply with _those_ , at least.”

“If I like them,” Maiza replied, stretching his arms past his cheeky grin and over his head. “I’ll like them better than dancing and fencing.”

“As will I,” said Ambrosius, fully serious yet failing to sound like it; he had hardly suppressed his smile before it was back again, and he moved to mimic a few dance steps in his levity. _One two three, one two_ —

The carpet wrinkle—ever so small, so paltry—tripped the third step, thr- _yee-eeh_ , and Ambrosius stumbled in front of Maiza for the first time, performing a decidedly lurching pirouette to keep himself on his feet and not his backside. Maiza laughed at him, hands-on-knees laughter, gasping-for-breath laughter, and Ambrosius could only smile and smile, for it was the first time he had ever heard his pupil laugh.

❖

Three days later, Ambrosius would hear Maiza close to tears for the first time.

First, he heard shouting. The shouting had not roused him from a nighttime slumber no-one decent should disturb, for he had been pacing about his chamber when it started, but it did disturb the sleep of at least one maid—Tessa—whom he found in the corridor outside.

“It sounds like his lordship,” said Tessa by way of fretful greeting, pulling her shawl more snugly across her shoulders. “We should find a guard, Mestre.”

“Yes,” he agreed, distracted. Most of House Avaro’s guards guarded the manor’s exterior, not interior—wait. _Wait_. Hadn’t there been a roster change…? “Fortunately, one should be stationed near the nursery.” And the nursery was in the direction of the noise—good. _Good_. They hurried through the corridors together.

Unfortunately, the stationed guard turned out to be Urrigo. At the sight of him—his back against a wall, his chin against his chest, and his musket at rest—Ambrosius let out an ungenteel curse. “Wake up!” he snapped. “Urrigo, arise!”

Urrigo yawned a beery yawn. “Eh, Mestre…?”

Ambrosius moved past him, slowing his pace only slightly. “Follow!”

Follow Urrigo did, albeit with much grumbling, and the three of them continued until their corridor opened into a wider hall. At the opposite end of the hall stood the library’s tall entrance—and in front of the entrance stood Lord Avaro, gripping Maiza’s arm with one hand and a candlestick holder in the other. Maiza’s bare feet slipped against the floor as he tried to pull his arm out of the hold. Ambrosius swallowed at the sight; Tessa covered her mouth.

“—tempestuous child, foolish boy—”

Urrigo scoffed.

“—could have burned down the library—”

“I wouldn’t have!” Maiza thrashed at him and then away, throwing all his weight into the act. His father’s grip remained fast. “I wouldn’t have, wouldn’t—”

“You were near _sleep_. One careless move—”

“Let me go!”

Lord Avaro’s grip tightened with ire; Maiza’s expression tightened with pain. “Let me—”

“—Disobedient. You know you are to be in bed at this hour. What am I to do with you? You’re far too callow yet.”

Maiza swiped his forearm across his eyes. Again he pulled back; this time, his right leg buckled. He yelped and grit his teeth, suddenly all but dangling from his father’s hand as he tried to find his footing.

 _Blood at his right shin…_ Ambrosius surged forward. “My Lord—the fault is mine. I gave him a reading list. The Young Master is only—”

“And did you tell him to enter the library at night?”

“I…”

“It matters not. He knows he is not allowed regardless.”

A skirted figure brushed against Ambrosius’ left side; Tessa, he presumed.

“Darling?”

 _Lady Avaro!_ Ambrosius averted his gaze, lest he be accused of impropriety.

“You will spend the rest of the night on the balcony,” Lord Avaro was saying, as he dragged Maiza toward a pair of glacial white doors. “If you find your chambers so displeasing, this will no doubt be a welcome change of scenery.”

Maiza went limp. A second later he was twisting, writhing, snarling resentment in fits and starts in a final bid to break free. His father yanked back at his wrist with equal, absent-minded viciousness, busy searching his pockets with his free hand—then, with a curse, he pushed at the left balcony door. It swung outward on silent hinges and allowed a breeze inward, cool and contemptuous.

Lord Avaro turned with it to give Urrigo a frosty glare. “You. Why is the door unlocked?”

“Who knows?” Urrigo’s indolent smirk grew sly. “Maybe the Young Master left it open?”

Perhaps Urrigo had forgotten, like Ambrosius, that Lord Avaro was still on Maiza’s ‘side’. No—unlike Ambrosius, Urrigo had forgotten his place—one which Lord Avaro now scoffed at. “We will discuss this in the morning. For now…” He jerked Maiza forward; Maiza stumbled through the door’s threshold, whipped around—and toppled from the force of the door slamming shut. Within seconds he was kneeling, pounding his small fist against an embedded windowpane as if to shatter it.

Ambrosius exhaled a quavering breath when Lady Avaro glided over, kneeling to press her own palm against the cloudy glass. “Now Maiza, dear,” she said, her sternness soft but felt, “we mustn’t be naughty. Who knows what terrible thing could have befallen you?” She clutched at her shawl in the same manner Tessa had, crimping the cloth with whitened fingers. “You mustn’t worry us so, darling. We’ll fetch you in the morning, after you’ve thought it all through.”

Much to Ambrosius’ numb surprise, Lord Avaro helped his wife rise and even permitted her to loop her arm around his. Then he swept his august stare across the staff. “Back to bed with all of you. Not _you_ ,” he added, with an especially pointed sniff Urrigo’s way. “ _You_ resume your patrol.”

Tessa turned back at once; when Lord Avaro glowered, Ambrosius reluctantly followed.

❖

Once safely returned to his chamber, Ambrosius crossed the room and forced his window open. A chill answered; on any other occasion, he would have welcomed it and its accompanying whispers of _home_. Not now. He took a distracted inventory of the room—the bed’s green blanket and curtains, the desk’s bookstacks and diverting knickknacks, the sturdy wardrobe of clothes too large and impractical for Maiza’s frame—and there, on a hook, hung the brown traveling cloak and gloves he had not worn since arriving in the southlands. 

He seized them and flung the musty cloak about himself. His fingers stalled on the brooch. _If I go now..._ Certainly, there would be consequences for Ambrosius and Maiza both if Lord Avaro were to encounter him heading for the balcony. There would be suspicion. Disdain. It was dangerous to assume the masters of the house had immediately returned to bed.

Urgency thrummed through him nonetheless; he had to go. He _must go_. Where was the patience he had so carefully reserved this past week? As Ambrosius clutched at his hair, his gaze again settled on his desk.

A nervous twitch tingled at his wrists. Swallowing, he moved forward and took the small satchel of coins meant for Maiza’s arithmetic lessons from the top left desk drawer. Weighed it like Maiza had done. Tipped it to one side.

The coins clacked against the desk, their tattoo as erratic as his own heartbeat. He counted them under the moonlight, under five minutes, under the overwarm weight of his cloak. _Too quick_. Ambrosius rolled one of the coins between his fingers, pressing its ridge into his thumbpad. _Too quiet_. Every floorboard creaked _too loud_.

He dropped the coin into the satchel with the others, stood, and raised the satchel into the air. With his free hand, he covered his eyes. With the other, he swung the satchel like a sword—arcing down, aiming for a shoulder, for skin, for the _sound_ of coins ricocheting off surfaces. Only once the tings and pings had ceased did he look about him—and set to counting.

Half an hour later found Ambrosius marching through the corridors in full traveling regalia, his gloves masking the metallic odor that would surely cling to his hands for some time yet. He tossed the coin bag to Urrigo upon approaching him, caught the answering balcony door key in passing, and ventured out onto the balcony thence with little fuss.

“Mestre?”

He looked down to find Maiza huddled against the wall, hugging his knees to his chest. Though his breeches seemed warm enough, his thin white shirt ruffled in the breeze—lending him the appearance and permeability of a night specter but not its immortality. Maiza sniffed and wiped his nose with one sleeve, looking away from Ambrosius in favor of the distant horizon.

Ambrosius unbuckled his cloak and blanketed Maiza with it, soon crouching to better draw it snug around Maiza’s neck. Despite his soft touch, Maiza only tolerated the contact and continued to avoid eye contact as Ambrosius sat beside him.

They sat in silence for a while—Ambrosius with the wall frigid against his rigid back, Maiza hunching into the cloak, warmth in the middle—and under a starry night sky, with the waxing moon’s light bathing the balcony in a harsh gray hue. The parapet fenced off the view at their current height, its fat balusters leaving only the slightest of gaps to filter through the world, and Ambrosius’ mind wondered to his distant homelands and more-distant lands still: those of East Asia, of Africa, of the Americas, of far-flung places he had yet to see for himself; and back to his childhood homes once more, to a drafty stone tower looming out of a peat bog, to a modest villa in the countryside, to rain and mist and all things _familiar_.

If he shut his eyes he would be back in that tower—a boy of nine hiding in the stairwell, stone at his back and a draft at his front, strangers shouting below—

—If he shut his eyes, he risked falling asleep.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Ambrosius smiled at nothing and folded his gloved hands in his lap. “The most I’ve been in weeks—thankfully so.” His smile quirked. “It almost reminds me of home.”

After a long beat, Maiza asked, “…Home? Where?” He rose unsteadily and limped toward the parapet, draping the cloak around his back in the process. As Ambrosius hastened to join him, he pointed at the horizon with his free hand while clutching the cloak closed with his other. There was a certain plaintiveness to his next question, something fervid and urgent: “Beyond the sea?”

“The opposite,” Ambrosius replied, refraining from nodding in said direction. “I came by land—from the North…”

Below them the Tyrrhenian Sea crusted gold along the edges of Lotto Valentino’s ever-lit harbor, moonlight threading silver across the waves before they faded dark into the iron horizon; here and there ship-lanterns sluiced through the sea-mist like shooting stars, isolated and intrepid and wholly irresistible.

“…I’ve shown you, I think,” he continued, recalling the terrestrial globe in the library—he had traced a finger from the Italian peninsula up through the Continent, speaking idly of what scant and scattered family origins his mother had been willing to tell him. “…The North. As a child I never stayed in one place long enough to think of it as Home.” He huffed a dry laugh. “A way of life that remains unchanged to this day, I admit.”

It seemed tonight’s conversation would be replete with lulls, but Ambrosius was content to wait each one of them out for the sake of Maiza’s comfort. At this height, they only had the wind’s whine for ambient noise; Ambrosius kept an ear out for Maiza’s voice while he contemplated the harbor and the ships docked in its piers—and so he did not miss Maiza speaking despite his voice being small and tremulous:

“When you go… Will you take me with you?”

Maiza may as well have been appealing to the ships at sea rather than Ambrosius, staring at the seascape as he was—or perhaps transfixed by its unknown Beyond. “Please?”

Ambrosius slowly exhaled. _Oh, Heavens_. “Why presume my departure? That I’ll—go?”

“Because you all do,” Maiza said, eerily serene. “Because I want to, too.” Slowly, slowly, he turned his dreamlike gaze up toward Ambrosius and repeated his equally dreamlike supplication. “Please let me go with you.”

“I—” He swallowed back _If I could, I just might_ , and said, “I can’t.”

“Why‽” The cloak slid off Maiza’s shoulders as he lashed a fist Ambrosius’ way, expression abruptly crumpling with desperate jealousy. “Why! Why not? You can but you won’t—why? You hate it here too—why do you get to leave and I don’t?” He stopped to gasp for air, and then grit his teeth. “It isn’t fair.”

“You’re right. It isn’t fair, and I’m sorry for that,” Ambrosius soothed, clearing his throat at Maiza’s baleful glare. “I don’t hate it here, mind you—”

“You _all_ do,” insisted Maiza. Fear flashed across his face—never had he looked more like a child than he did now—and it was with no small degree of uncertainty that he said, “You have to.”

Ambrosius bent to retrieve the cloak, using the time as an excuse to carefully choose his next words. “It’s—stuffy,” he suggested wryly, “stuffier than I prefer, yes.” Luckily _claustrophobic_ likely had yet to find its way into Maiza’s vocabulary. “But I’m glad to be your tutor, and I don’t intend to leave you without a master without good reason. Why do _you_ want to leave?”

“I’ve never gotten to.” Maiza raised his chin in defiance, fists furled at his side. “I’ve never gone anywhere. It’s boring here. I’ve never sailed before. It’s mean and I hate it, I hate Father, I hate fencing and dancing and manners, and, and—” He huddled in on himself, away from the wind and proffered cloak, hugging his arms around his chest. “It isn’t _fair_!”

Never had he _acted_ more like a child than he did now—but even now, Ambrosius thought, empathy panging in his chest, Maiza remained unlike most children he’d ever met. Most children were naïve creatures—and while Maiza _could_ be naïve in certain respects, he had never once believed that everything in his world was the way it _should_ be, as children tend to do. There was no such thing as a “child’s cynicism”—yet Maiza already had the makings of an adult cynic. Like most children he couldn’t fully articulate the hows and whys of his dissatisfaction, or resentment or stress or any number of negative emotions—yet he often harbored them for far longer periods compared to _most children_ ’s mood swings.

This outburst—neither his first nor last—was both a child’s immediate tantrum and the natural venting of a long-suffered grievance. Maiza would surely feel better in the morning—but in the long-term…

Ambrosius shook the cloak again; despite Maiza’s clenched jaw, he allowed himself to be wrapped warm and gripped the cloak with both hands once Ambrosius stepped back.

“Someday you’ll be grown,” Ambrosius said, “and at that time, you will be able to choose your destiny as you see fit. For now, you’ve still some growing to do yet. You’ll be better off doing that here, where you’ve food, clothing, and shelter the world can’t always provide you.”

“Why can’t I choose now? Let’s go now. Let’s steal a ship. You can teach me things on the way. I choose to _go_.”

“Forever?”

“ _Forever_.”

“And what about Gretto?” Ambrose’s tone was gentle, but Maiza flinched all wide-eyed and startled with guilt. “You’ll leave him behind as well?”

“I—" Shrinking into the parapet’s corner, Maiza whispered, “I can’t.”

 _There it is_. Ambrosius guided Maiza back to the wall and lowered him to the floor until they were both sitting as they had before—except Maiza now leaned on Ambrosius’ arm, weary from helplessness and frustration.

A thought occurred to Ambrosius too late. “How fares your leg?”

“S’fine.” Hardly a reassuring answer, but Ambrosius didn’t dare test the fragile trust Maiza was affording him so far. “Mestre, I’m—I’m a brother. I have a brother now.”

“Yes.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Love him. Squabble only over minutiae. Keep some secrets with him, others from him. Make him laugh. Foster trust. Most of all, love him.” Their nursery trip hummed at the back of his mind. “Love is a form of protection in its own right.”

“What if it’s not enough? What if I don’t… I don’t…?”

“Do you want to leave him behind?”

“No. I don’t. I _won’t_.”

“You won’t abandon him.”

“Never.”

“That’s enough, then. As long as he knows it—as long as you prove it—that will suffice.”

Maiza was quiet for a while. “Mestre, do you have a brother?”

“If I do, I’ve never met him,” Ambrosius said absently. “I only had a mother, growing up.”

“Hm?” Maiza shifted against his arm. “Aren’t you like me?”

Hadn’t Ambrosius intended to distract Maiza from his punishment plight in the first place? Immersing Maiza in his own past rather than their shared present might do the trick. “Mm, in a manner of speaking…” After all, Lord Avaro would never have hired a tutor who was anything less than noble. “I’m told my grandmother or great-grandmother or some-grandmother found a paramour in a Lord Sun-something-or-other…”

He regaled Maiza with tales of his childhood until Maiza’s breaths began slowing; once they evened out with sleep, Ambrosius tipped his head back and settled in for a night vigil. At dawn he would have to return to his chamber—barring any interference from Urrigo—but until then, and until Lord Avaro someday dismissed him from the Avaros’ service—he would not abandon his charge.

Knowing Lord Avaro as he did, _someday_ could be months from now. A fortnight, even. Determination and dread jangled Ambrosius’ nerves as he processed the exigency anew: it was imperative that he impart all manner of lessons unto Maiza before his contract’s end. He could not trust his successor to have the same perspicacity and care toward Maiza as he did; he certainly did not trust that Lord Avaro ever would.

When Maiza did eventually leave Lotto Valentino—for Ambrosius had no doubt that he _would_ —what would he leave behind, and what lessons would he have taken to heart? What manner of man might he be—and what manner of man _should_ he be? Would his departure be a choice made peacefully, or in turmoil?

When Ambrosius _was_ eventually dismissed as Maiza’s tutor, three years down the line, he would be no closer to the answers than he had been at the vigil’s end.

###  **Four**

**T** he Young Master was full of promises.

He promised to be a good Young Master, a good Son, a good Noble. He promised Father he would be a Good Avaro. He promised Mother he would be a Good Son. He promised to do Everything Right and cried when he did Everything Wrong. He promised not to do Anything Wrong again.

He promised Dolfin he wouldn’t spook the horses. He promised Salvia not to tattle about the missing jewelry. He promised to tattle when Father clapped his ear for Being Bad. He promised himself he wouldn’t cry and promised promised promised he wouldn’t fail.

The Young Master was bright and full of promise, and didn’t understand why.

He wanted to go outside! He wanted to play! He wanted to know _why why why_ and was told _No_ when he shouted _Yes_ and told _Yes_ when he screamed _No_.

 _No_ , the Young Master couldn’t go out and play. _No_ , he mustn’t squirm and shout. _No_ , she wouldn’t unlock his door. _Yes_ , he promised to be Good and Smart and Better. _Yes_ , he could come out now.

 _No_ , the Young Master _had_ to grow up the sooner the better. _Act an Avaro, not your age_.

 _Yes_ he would grow up, he wanted to Grow Up, _yes yes yes_. He promised himself he would Grow Up Fast and tell everyone _no No No!_ and lock them up and go play because he would be Tall and Strong and Master and Free.

The Young Master was too bright for his own good, but not bright enough for the Family Good.

 _I love you_ , he said. _I hate you_ ; _I hate you. No I love you, please I love you, promise I’m good_.

The Young Master tried and tried to be Good and was never Good Enough.

###  **One Day**

**_A_** _boy_.

Though Lord Avaro’s carriage rattled about him, juddering from every rough patch it sped across, he remained all-consumed with that all-outstanding, formidable notion: _A boy_.

Few tidings could recall him from a promising trade talk with one of the Princes of Sansevero; fewer still could command his whole attention. _A boy._

Having already shouted instructions at the driver to work the horses a hair’s breadth from dead, he was left drumming his fingers against his thigh and willing the scenery to fly by all the faster. _A boy_.

 _A boy. A boy_! The thought propelled him out of the carriage the very moment it halted a short distance from the manor’s front entrance; he barreled past the steward waiting uselessly on the porch and into the grand hall, slowing only once he registered the words _Lady_ and _resting_ amongst the man’s gibbering.

“…comfortably, my Lord, quite comfortably—”

“Show me,” Lord Avaro demanded, all but dragging the steward up the staircase. _A boy!_ The news buzzed in his ears and drowned out the rest; one second he was on the stairs, the next he was striding into their to-be-nursery. _A boy!_

He stared down at the boy—his boy, _his_ —sleeping sound in his wife’s arms. His wife smiled up at him, down at their son—smiled at everyone and everything, dark hair splayed against cream-colored pillows. “Welcome home, milord.”

“You are radiant,” he said, bending to kiss her brow. “You have done well by me. Beyond my expectations.” A healthy son, and a wife healthy to birth another still. He swelled with pride. His wife. His _son_. A male heir already—a son for whom he would ensure a restored and powerful House, and who would lead the House to further glory in years to come. There was so much to do—so much to teach him.

 _A boy_.

“A name.” Lord Avaro’s hand came to hover over his son’s head. “He must have a name.”

His wife stirred with affectionate but wary surprise. “So soon? Surely we should wait a few days, in case…”

“He will survive,” Lord Avaro said haughtily. “He is an Avaro. That is what we _do_. Have faith in that much.”

The boy yawned, blinking open brown, curious eyes—ah. Ah, he had his mother’s countenance. How _disappointing_. Nonetheless, he had his father’s blood.

“You are henceforth Maiza,” Lord Avaro told him. “Maiza Avaro, first scion of the noble House of Avaro. From now on, you shall not disappoint me.” His voice gruffened. His expectations soared. “I expect no less than greatness.”

Maiza yawned again, blissfully unburdened by his father’s name, aristocracy, and expectation as he would be in time. In time, he would be potential unfulfilled—wasted, squandered, reviled—in time, he would be Aile of the Rotten Eggs, the upstart, the stripling, the protégé and mentor, the alchemist, the _contaiuolo_ , a single child by his own failings (always, his failings). By choice he would someday be Maiza again—and thereafter Maiza Avaro without a choice, he and his legacy bound to his name sempiternal.

In time, he might learn to live with it. For now, the future was yet writ in stone: his father smiled at the idea of him and dreamed easily of his potential unrealized; his mother smiled at the reality of him and dreamed sweetly of his happiness unrealized. In time, he would learn to live. For now, Maiza Avaro dreamed innocently of an underway voyage unrealized—of a little ship sailing down, down, down, forward, forward, forward into that maelstrom we call _life_.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, glad you could make it. Truly; **thank you** for sticking with this until the end. Feedback/critique/etc. is, "as always," welcome. This is my first published fic in over a year, after all. And thanks again to the artists to whom I've gifted this fic. You rock.
> 
> Onto the real history + fic history hodgepodge:
> 
>  **Nineteen** was the vignette that began it all; this fic started with "Jean was people-watching..." until I wrote 21, the last vignette. It hadn't occurred to me until I was halfway through 15 that I might want to start the fic 1-2 months before Vol 11 (1705). This thought was further bolstered when I noticed no vignettes I had in mind featured Gretto as the PoV character. (The conceit that Maiza wouldn't be a PoV character despite it being 'his story' was present from the beginning.) As for '21'—I wrote a post a month back comparing the Genoards to the Avaros, yes? That post was a byproduct of me writing 21.
> 
>  **Seventeen:** Vol 17 indicates the Avaros had tried and failed to set Gretto up with potential marriage partners, so Maiza naturally must have contended with his own arranged marriage candidates back in his day. This directly led to 17's concept and the Morettis' manifestation. Where 'Ninteen' was completed fairly quickly, I stalled in writing 'Seventeen' multiple times due to historical research frustrations. The first obstacles were Italian aristocratic fashion and dance styles at the turn of the century; I spent weeks fussing over Baroque dances, justaucorps and corsets before deciding I didn't actually need to _describe_ the dancing and skipped it accordingly. I stalled soon after on the exterior and interior of Italian hillside/seaside mansions at the turn of the century alongside figuring out where the Avaro manor was, exactly, in the aristocrats' quarter; later, I spent a bit of time looking up Italian academies and old books on birds.
> 
> Speaking of which: the Italian writer I originally intended Vittoria to reference was Antonio Valli da Todi, who wrote a book on capturing and training songbirds— _Il Canto degl'Augelli_ in 1601. That book, however, was very rare and probably not very well-known a century later—not even to a bird aficionado like Vittoria. The 1622 book on songbirds titled _Uccelliera_ and published by Giovanni Olina, however, was popular to a far greater degree. It also plagiarized a sizable amount of Valli's 1601 work. Alas, it's the one I assume Vittoria would've been more likely to have heard of.
> 
> I didn't plan to include Esperanza at first—no, really. But since the 17 vignette _is_ set somewhere in 1701, and since I _did_ have Maiza and Vittoria bring him up, I realized there wasn't actually anything stopping me from bringing Esperanza to this party. And so I did. No regrets.
> 
>  **Fifteen:** The portrait was inspired by Maiza regretting the lack of one in 1935 (angst ahoy!). This section was ambitious in the sense we know nothing about Mom Avaro. I think the only reference to her is when Gretto thinks "maybe mother would understand" (about him loving a commoner like Sylvie) in 1711, so at minimum she must be marginally better than Lord Avaro. If I ever write her again, I truly don't know if I'll characterize her differently than I did here; here, I tried to envision a woman who loves her sons but is usually in concord with her husband and the ways of aristocracy—and just because she loves her sons doesn't mean she necessarily disagrees with or stands in the way of most of her husband's parenting. She's simply...complicated. Maiza at this age was also a mystery, as was him at...
> 
>  **Nine:** We have so little idea of what Maiza was like as a child, so this fic was simultaneously interesting and terrifying to write. Again—would I characterize Maiza at 15 and 9 in another fic the same way I do here? I don't know. But I did try, at least, to root these versions of him in the versions we see of him in canon. Anyhow, on an unrelated note—do you ever come up with names for OCs in fics you like so much you kinda want to save them for your totally original characters instead? That's how I feel about 'Vittoria Moretti' but especially 'Ambrosius Thrane', though I also grew fond of the character. Perhaps I'll have to replace him, someday... (Also, the idea of Maiza learning math + finance from a dhampyr with arithmomania who's unaware he's a dhampyr amuses me in ways I can't explain).
> 
>  **Four:** Despite the conceit of Maiza not having a PoV, this vignette exists. In its defense, it's "in Maiza's PoV" in only the most technical of senses...
> 
>  **One Day:** Although Lord Avaro is a terrible father, I do give him some non-terrible moments throughout the fic. If there's one thing I'm sure about, it's that he thought the world of Maiza when Maiza was born—or rather, he expected the world of him.


End file.
